


Fox-Face & Flames

by tykimikkitty



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014), Big Hero 6: The Series (Cartoon)
Genre: Amnesia, Family Feels, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26140864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tykimikkitty/pseuds/tykimikkitty
Summary: Another mask-wearing hero arrives in San Fransokyo. Having no qualms about killing, this man appears to be more of an adversary than an ally to the city's six heroes. Putting that aside, something about this fox-masked, anti-hero seems melancholy and familiar...
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

_Hey, did you know that in legend it is believed that a fox — rather, a kitsune — feasts on hearts because hearts themselves are a delicacy like none other?"_

_A thin and pale smile — almost teasing, almost as if the owner of such a smile is laughing at everything and everyone — is given._

_"But then the question arises: 'what if a person doesn't have a heart?' What then?"_

_A pause._

_"Well, I daresay that a kitsune would be tempted to swallow up the very one that beats in its chest. Don't you agree?"_

_The person recieving such questions does not care to answer them. Or perhaps, he does not know the answer to such questions. Perhaps, he does not know the answers to such questions because he does not have a heart of his own. Perhaps, he himself — like a fox — has already devoured the one that used to beat in his chest._

* * *

  
Edward Yamamoto sighed contentedly as he leaned back in his office chair in a room that sat at the very top of the CASCO Incorporation's main communications building.

Working hours had been long over but, being one of the CEOs of CASCO, Edward was obliged by responsibility to stay after-hours — or something along those lines, he told himself. His secretary had left only minutes earlier, leaving him alone to his dim office. The lamp that rested on his desk provided only a sparse amount of light, but he was perfectly content with that too.

He arose from his chair — he ignored the squeaking protests it gave as he was quite above annoyances at that level — and turned towards the windows that glistened behind him. The city of San Fransokyo unfolded it's night-life scenery from behind the thin windowpane for his viewing. The moonlight from the sky was being hidden away by a dark and heavy cloud, but the city lights glistened with enough luminance to replace a thousand moons. He smiled at the sight. His ghostly reflection from the window smiled back at him.

This reverie, however, was disrupted when the light from his lamp abruptly died. Pitch blackness, darkness consumed the room. The reflection of his office was outlined even more on the windowpane in this darkness; and in that reflection another face that was not his own appeared just over his shoulder.

The face was not that of a human.

No human face could be that pale. No human face could have such angled eyes, nor such an angled mouth. No human face could be so animalistic, so fox-like in appearance.

Edward turned on his heels and pressed back against the window behind him. His eyes were wide with fear and confusion — an expression he was familiar with seeing on others, not so much himself.

Who was this person? How did they manage to reach his office? Where was security?!

"H-How the hell did you get in here?!" Edward stuttered angrily, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat. "Security!"

The fox-faced humanoid did not answer. Instead it simply approached him. With every step it drew closer; and Edward found himself desperately smashing his back against the window behind him. He was pressing back so hard against the glass pane that he swore that it would crack if he pressed against it any further.

"What do you want?" Edward tried again in a quieter voice. Business-like, almost professional.

With his question ringing in the air, it finally stopped its approach and was now only inches away from him.

It was then that Edward was able to register the fox-faced humanoid's additional features. Reddened scars twisted along its exposed left arm; and white gauze was wrapped from both of its forearms down to the base of its palms — a stark contrast in color, almost blinding. But Edward did not take these features to heart nor did he take the time to observe the thing's other features; rather, his attention was stolen away by the the sheathed katana that rested on its back.

"A-Are you going to kill me?!" Edward stuttered in horror. He could literally taste death on his tongue.

It refused to answer once more.

"I-If you're doing this for money," Edward continued, straightening himself up and staring into what he believed were the creature's eyes, "I can pay you way more handsome—

"Edward Yamamoto," the fox-faced thing drew with a deep and cold voice — a voice that was startlingly human. "You've been investing in scientific projects that involve human experimentation."

Edward's eyes widened in shock, and all he could manage was — "H-How did you know...?"

"You are guilty."

The cloud that had been covering the moon up until then drifted away as that statement was spoken. Silver light showered the room, and Edward winced at the sudden brightness. And in that reflexive action, he missed catching sight of many things.

He missed the glint of light from the fox-faced man's drawn blade.

He missed the splatter of red that erupted from his neck as the blade finished its course.

He missed the cold smirk that arose on the fox-faced man's true face as he removed and discarded the fox-mask (not mask) onto the dark floor.

He missed seeing the final seconds of his life tick away into nothing.

The office fell into reverie once more, and the city lights continued to play behind the windowpane.

* * *

It was only half an hour later that the office was invaded once more. This time the invaders came in the form of five humans and one large robot. They entered the room in unison, taking on offensive-fighting poses almost immediately. These poses fell, however, as the six realized that the room was deathly quiet and empty.

"Uh, so where's the Yamamoto dude at?" one of the six — Fred — questioned as he took off his reptilic mask.

"The security officers said that he never left the building," another one of the six — Honey — frowned as she walked deeper into the office. "He should be in here…"

"Great," another — GoGo — scoffed, popping the bubble she carefully crafted from the gum in her mouth. "So does this mean that we just waste our one free night?"

"No," the smallest member — Hiro — scoffed back at her as he approached the wooden desk that rested at the very back of the room, "this just means that we're probably going to have a full-on chase scene in a few."

Hiro inspected the desk carefully, looking around and below it until a flash of white and red caught his eye. Resting on the floor next to the very corner of the desk was a circular object. He bent down and picked it up with a frown.

"What've you got there, Hiro?" another — Wasabi — asked with slightly raised eyebrows.

Hiro raised the object so the other five could see it.

"It's a… kitsune mask."  
  



	2. Second Encounter: Kin (金)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A golden encounter.

Hiro stared scrutinizingly at the kitsune-mask that he was holding high above his head as he laid in bed. He then sighed for the upteenth time that day, rolled onto his stomach, and studied the mask from a different angle.

"Hm…."

"Hiro, I kindly suggest that you start studying for the exam that you have on Thursday so that you will not have to pull an all-nighter again. It is not good for your mental and physical well-being. Adolescents of your age require at least ten hours of sleep a day."

Hiro glanced up at the giant, marshmallowy blob of genius-level mechanical work that stood patiently next to his bed. It blinked at him innocently, and he smirked back at it.

"Sleep is for nerds." He finally replied as he rolled back onto his back and spread his legs and arms apart. The mask was loosely dangling on his fingertips now.

"I sense that you are distressed, Hiro." Baymax stated as he plopped on his butt and blinked at Hiro again, albeit more intensely. "Are you distressed because of our encounter with the masked man last night?"

"I don't know." Hiro sighed, rolling onto his belly again. "Wouldn't you be if some guy with a mask just randomly apparated in front of you like he was Harry Potter or something, while you were in the middle of a bank showdown thing?"

"Perhaps talking about it more will help relax you." Baymax suggested.

Hiro grimaced and stared at the mask again.

"I don't know… something about that guy was…"

* * *

[ _the previous evening_ ]

Hiro was certain that at that moment he was the embodiment of a perfect student. Here he was busily scribbling away in his notebook at his desk with his eyes rapidly darting from left to right. There his textbook was laid out on his lap. And there his night lamp, giving off waves of heat because it had been on for over five hours now, burning away on the corner of his desk. But his current appearance was just a facade for the true horror that he was going through. To put it simply, he was being murdered by his homework. That was the reason why he nearly leapt out of his seat in joy when he suddenly found himself being rescued (distracted) from it. This salvation came from a beeping sound that emanated from Baymax's chest. The robot was idly sitting in the corner of the room and reading a Goldilocks picture book and jumped in surprise at the sound.

Hiro had recently programmed him with a software that allowed him to connect with all the emergency news medias that were relevant to San Fransokyo. It had taken a while to adjust all of the channel frequencies to a small, operable chip, but it had been worth it.

"My news-media implant indicates that there has been a bank robbery slash hostage situation at Sanfransokyo Rank-Bank." Baymax pipped as he jerked his head upwards. "Would you like me to inform your friends of this development?"

"Hell yeah!" Hiro grinned, fist-pumping the air and throwing his pencil down onto the table. "And tell them to suit up!"

Without skipping a beat, Hiro immediately ran down to the garage - not before giving his aunt a hasty excuse of course - and equipped his suit, as well as Baymax's. Seconds after the last bit of the robot's armor was equipped, Hiro hopped on the robot's back and the duo took off to the sky.

It didn't take them long to reach the bank, although they did have a rough landing due to the fact that so many police cars were surrounding the establishment. Said establishment was grand in every aspect - all the way from its creamy marble walls to its well well-polished windowpanes.

"Took you guys long enough." pipped a snarky voice as the duo alighted onto the ground with slight clumsiness.

"Whatever, Speedy," Hiro rolled his eyes as he hopped down from Baymax's back. He took a quick look around and frowned. "Where are the others? Weren't you supposed to pick them up this time around?"

"Uh. No." 'Speedy' Gogo frowned, crossing her arms with a slight look of irritation. "I picked them up last time."

"Ugh!" Hiro slapped his forehead. "Seriously?"

It was then that the three shadows of their missing teammates appeared before them. All three owners of the shadows were undeniably panting their lungs out, but one of the three just so happened to be panting in a fashion that was happier than the others.

"Dudes!" came the pant from the reptile-themed suit. "I had to take the bus to get here, man! Not cool… although I did get to see some really rad sites."

"You took the bus?!" Wasabi scoffed from beside him. "Honey and I had to run our scrawny little legs all the way down here!"

"Well," Honey pipped from beside them as she brushed a strand of stray blonde hair to the side, "at least we got some good exercise!"

"Sorry…" Hiro muttered, rubbing the back of his head. "Forgot that it was my turn to pick you guys up…"

"Typical." Gogo rolled her eyes at him. He scowled back at her.

"Oh! Thank goodness you six are here!" came a voice originating from where the police cars were stationed. A policeman emerged from the shroud of red, white, and blue vehicles; and he bounded over to them. "We were waiting for your back-up!"

Fred then coughed and stepped forward, asking in a deep and authoritative voice, "So, what's the sitch?"

"Er… the _situation_ ," the policeman drew, throwing an uncertain glance in Fred's direction, "from what we know so far is not looking so good. Twenty-two hostages. Eleven perps, all armed with friction-flare artillery."

"It's kind of like a machine-gun, flamethrower thing. Uses friction to cause heat and fire." Wasabi explained to Fred who's confused expression turned ecstatic.

"Er, yes." the policeman nodded hesitantly again.

"It's alright." Hiro smirked. "We've got this."

And with that, the six of them began a slow-mo walk towards the bank's doors. From behind them, they could hear the policeman worriedly wondering if they were really going to take the entrance in. Of course they would. They were the Big Hero Six, afterall.

They burst through the bank's glass doors in unison.

The bank's marble floor was littered with frightened pedestrians who sat cowering in hunched-up positions. A handful of other people (six in all, ironically - the other four must have been deeper in the bank) stood tall above them and held friction-flare guns in their firm hands. These six people were dressed in all black and wore black socks with eye-sockets cut out over their heads. Said six people turned towards the opened doors of the bank with surprised expressions.

"Hm," Hiro nodded with a raised eyebrow, "isn't this a little bit too cliche?"

"Just a bit." Gogo agreed.

And they snapped into action.

Wasabi's main target was the man who stood nearest to the largest group of cowering hostages. He lunged at the man, taking a swipe at the man's gun with his blades. The man retreated backwards quickly, madly pulling on the trigger of the gun.

"Run!" Wasabi shouted at the hostages. "Get out of here, now!"

And the cowering people fled in a herd.

Flames erupted like a fiery volcano from the gun, but Wasabi quickly sliced through them like butter. Seeing the sharpness of Wasabi's blades, the man stumbled further backwards and turned to run away. Wasabi smirked at this and reached down to pick him up by the back scruff of his shirt. The black-dressed man whimpered as Wasabi turned him around so that they were face-to-face.

"Wasabi, watch out!" came a muffled warning shout from the corner of the room.

Wasabi turned just in time to see another black-dressed man come running at him with a drawn friction-flare pistol. The hero barely had time to release the other man that he had a hold on, reactivate his blades, and block the oncoming flames.

"Woah, hot hot hot!" He shouted as several spits of fire grazed his skin. He then heard a clack behind him and turned his head backwards ever so slightly just in time to see the man whom he had previously released pick his gun back up and point it at him. "You have got to be kidding me!" Wasabi deadpanned. He winced as he raised his other blade to block the second torrent of flames.

The heat was eating him alive.

"Uh, need a little help here!" he shouted.

"Wasabi, watch out! Again!"

It was then that a man wrapped in white and black dropped down from the ceiling to the floor in front of him. Wasabi barely had the time to register the man's white and red dappled fox-faced mask, before the said man charged at him.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" Wasabi groaned again as the man leapt at him.

The hero closed his eyes and waited for impact but was surprised when he felt two firm hands grasp his shoulders. He cracked open his eyes and saw that the mask-wearing man was nowhere to be found. Strangely enough, he still felt pressure on his shoulders. He glanced upwards and gaped as he registered the fox-masked man performing a handstand on his shoulders.

The fox-masked man turned his body, using Wasabi's shoulders as an axis, and slammed his legs down to the left. This fluid motion successfully knock one of the black-wearing men out cold. He then swerved his body once more and leapt into the air, landing on the other robber with a loud thud and with arms outstretched.

Wasabi stared at the man in shock.

"Uh… thanks….?" Was all he managed to mutter. He didn't have much time to think of anything intelligent to say. In fact, he didn't have much time to register the fact that another black-wearing man, who was swinging his friction-flare rifle wildy in the air, was charging at the masked-man from behind. "Hey, watch out-

The fox-masked man reflexively ducked low as the robber attempted to swing the butt of the rifle at his head. The man then kicked back his leg and spun in a complete circle, effectively knocking the robber clean off of his feet. He walked right over the prostrate and groaning robber as if he were merely a decorative rug and began running towards what appeared to be the back of the bank.

Wasabi, unsure of what to do, stared after him. Second later, he was broken from his daze by the worried shouts of his teammates.

"Wasabi!" his teammates shouted frantically at him as they ran to his side.

"Oh my gosh," Honey murmured in a frantic voice "are you alright? I tried to help but I was cornered…"

"I-I'm fine, baby girl." Wasabi waved her off with a smile.

"My scanners indicate that you are suffering from minor inflammations along your forearm." Baymax stated in his mechanical voice. "Would you like for me to apply some anti-burn spray?"

"Forget that!" Wasabi stuttered with a shake of his head, and he pointed towards the back of the bank. "Did you guys see that dude?!"

"Yeah," Hiro nodded, "I thought he was a baddy, but he might actually on our side..."

"Oh my gosh!" Honey yipped as she clapped her hands. "We should totally throw a hero-welcoming party for him, if he's just like us!"

"Oh man, oh man!" Fred chattered away from alongside her. "Do you know what this means? This means that this is our first superhero team up ever!"

There was a popping sound and all heads veered towards Gogo who was grimacing at them impatiently.

"Are we just going to stand here and chit-chat," she questioned with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms, "or are we going to go back there and kick some butt?"

They stared at her for a moment.

"All in favor of kicking some butt," Fred stated, finally breaking the silence, "say 'I'!"

A unison of "I"s arose, albeit Baymax's because the bot was slightly confused on the meaning of the conjecture. Nonetheless, the six began their sprint towards the back of the bank. Together they pushed back the oak-laden double-doors that led to the rear of the building, and together they assumed their fighting positions. It took a while for them to register that there was no one in the room to apprehend.

Men and women dressed in black were scattered all along the ground. Duffel bags filled with gold were strewn messily by their sides. Glittering jewels, several completely crushed to dust, dotted the floor like raindrops. Only three people in the room appeared untouched by the havoc that had torn through it. Two of these three people, judging by their black wear, were part of the thieving gang. That left the man dressed in both shades of black and white to be identified with an alignment.

"What the…?"

"A kitsune mask…"

The group of six watched as the masked man charged at one of the robbers. Said robber drew out his friction-flare rifle and began shooting madly at the man. The masked-man effectively somersaulted past the streams of fire at an inhuman speed. Leaping into the air and soaring over the rifle-wielding robber's head, the masked-man grabbed the robber by his shoulders mid-flight and yanked him up into the air. For a moment they floated there; and in the next moment, the masked-man deftly landed poised on his feet and slammed the robber hard onto the ground. There was a sickening crack.

"Y-You bastard!" the final robber - who was more nicely dressed than the other robbers - stuttered and shouted in a mad rage as he drew out his own friction-flare artillery and fired. "Burn!"

In one swift and fluid motion, the masked-man bent low and scooped up the man whom he had just throttled to the ground and raised him in the direction of the oncoming flames. A human shield. The six heroes watched in both horror and shock as the hanging robber's body erupted into flames. A screech filled the air and the stench of burning flesh flooded nicely dressed robber immediately released his finger from the trigger. It was a grave mistake on his part.

The masked-man chucked the sweltering body of the robber that he had been using as a shield at the other robber and watched as the latter robber collapsed under the weight of the former one. He approached the fallen robber and watched for a moment as the latter struggled to unpin himself from the deadweight. Then, without skipping a beat, the masked-man bent low and grabbed at the fallen robber's arm. There was a sickening crack in the air again, and it was followed by a blood-curdling scream. When that drawn-out note hit the air, the masked-man lugged the fallen robber over his shoulder and turned towards the exit. He paused as he seemed to register the presences of the six heroes.

"Uh… guys," Fred whispered from beside them, "I think we've got an anti-hero on our hands."

"A what?" Gogo whispered tensely back in annoyance.

"Please!" the robber who was now dangling over the masked-man's shoulders shouted to them desperately. "Don't let him take me! Y-You can take me with you instead - to jail! I won't struggle; I promise!"

Gogo blew a bubble and popped it again with a contemplative expression. She then drew out her left-disk and chucked it at the masked-man. It whirled through the air at a breakneck speed and hurtled towards the man's mask. However, just as it was about to make contact with the mask, the man raised his free hand and caught the disk with almost no effort.

Gogo gapped at him for a moment and started the next moment when the man chucked the disk right back at her. A high-pitched whining sound resonated through the room as the weapon hurtled back towards her. Gogo extended her arms and prepared herself to catch it. For a moment, it was in her grasps, sliding into her fingertips like ice. In the next moment, however, she found herself being thrown backwards by the force of the throw. She wrapped the disk tightly in her arms and skidded along the floor until her back hit the wall behind her.

"Gogo!" Hiro shouted and he, as well as the others, ran to her side. He bent down low. "Baymax, scanners!"

"I'm fine!" Gogo grunted as she came to a slow stand. "More importantly, the masked guy-"

Hiro craned his neck just in time to see the masked-man sprint past him. For a moment, however, time seemed to freeze. It froze at the exact instance the masked man passed him by. In that moment, Hiro was able to make eye-contact with the cold, black eyes that peered out from underneath the mask's slanted eye-holes. And in that moment, Hiro swore that his heart stopped beating alltogether.

Time unfroze again and the masked-man was gone. In his place was the fox-mask that he had been wearing; and it clattered noisily on the ground until it stilled.

* * *

[ _present time_ ]

Gogo sighed as she folded her arms and leaned against the wooden cafe table. She rested her head on her crossed arms and stared intently at the cappucino that was waiting patiently in front of her.

"What's wrong, rad girl?" Honey asked sunnily from across the table.

The sunny scientist was currently flipping through a textbook whilst sipping on a cup of warm honey, lemon tea. The two girls had come out to the cafe for a girls-night-out slash study-session get-together. Honey was the only one doing the studying, however. Gogo, on the other hand, was caught up in her thoughts of the previous night.

"Nothin." Gogo replied curtly, leaning back in her chair and studying the palm of her hands. She was thankful for the fact that Baymax had applied healing cream to her palms or she would have gotten a bad rug-burn from the force of friction of catching her disk. Dissatisfied by the damage her own disk had caused her, she blew a bubble and popped it again.

"Are you thinking about the kitsune-mask guy, Gogo?" Honey blinked at her as she placed her textbook down on the table.

Gogo clicked her tongue in response.

"Fred said something along the lines of that guy being an anti-hero of some sort." Honey continued, clasping her hands together.

"Are you sure we should be taking Fred's advice of all things on this?" Gogo scoffed as she crossed her arms.

"I don't know…" Honey sighed; and she studied her hands for a quiet moment. "Maybe we could help him be an anti-anti-hero!"

"I don't know about that, Sunshine." Gogo grimaced, before she studied her palms again with a frown. "Something about that guy though…"

* * *

The moon outlined the cityscape and created a stark contrast between white and black. At the very top of the blackest building sat a man who had on an entirely blank expression. He sat with one of his legs hanging off of the edge of the building and with the other leg tucked beneath his chin. He stared down at the roaring trains and cars below with dark eyes. It disgusted him. Angered him even. The city that sped on forward; and those within the city that were too weak to catch up.

There was a sudden and soft clacking behind him; and he cast a side glance in the general direction of the sound. A small, female figure appeared from the darkness, the most noticeable feature of this small figure being the red snake-like mask that rested on her head.

"Hey, Kitsune!" the girl pipped as she bounded over to his side and peered at his face. "Wow, I know that I've probably told you this before, but you are a hottie! You shouldn't hide away that pretty face with that scary mask of yours!" She squinted and plopped down beside him: "Although I really think you should put some healing cream on those nasty burn scars of yours…"

The man didn't acknowledge that he heard what she had said.

"Oh," she continued, kicking her legs back and forth loudly against the building's metal frame, "I came to ask you why you decided to intervene at the bank today."

He glanced at her again but didn't answer.

"I mean," she sighed, undoing her mask and fiddling with it in her tiny palms, "I know it was your mission and all, but you could've just waited until everything was over and swooped in at the last minute!" She placed her mask on her lap and stroked it lovingly. "From where I was sitting, it looked like you were actually trying to help those weirdos - not that that's a problem or anything. It's just that it's so not like you to do that stuf-"

"Hebi(**), stop bothering him." came a grunt from behind the sitting duo. "Don't you see that he's in one of his brooding moods? Brooding equals 'do-not-disturb'."

The sitting two turned their heads and watched as a large man approached them. The man wore a kind smile, but his sharp eyes glistened dangerously above them.

"I was just curious, Usagi (***)!" The girl, Hebi, pouted as she crossed her arms.

"Come on, you snake." The large man, Usagi, grunted as he jerked his head backwards. "Just leave him alone for now."

With much reluctance, the girl unfolded herself from the man's side and bounded over to where Usagi stood. They departed into the darkness seconds later.

The brooding man was thus left to himself in the moonlight. He untucked his leg from beneath his chin and allowed it to dangle above the cityscape. He leaned backwards and blinked up at the sky. That disgusted him too.

"I don't know why." he finally spoke, answering the girl's question.


	3. Third Encounter: Hitojichi (人質)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hostage situation.

The Robotics building of San Fransokyo University was buzzing with life — especially the laboratory room. The floors were littered with spare parts and wires that stretched down from the ceiling. Students, caught up in their rapidly whirling minds, were running back and forth across the room and somehow managed not to trip over the machinery and debris.

In what was deemed the chemistry-section of the laboratory stood one smiling adolescent nicknamed Honey Lemon. She was currently sketching notes about isotopes and noble gases in her notepad. Well, she was actually trying to prove a theory a _bout_ isotopes and noble gases wrong just for kicks and giggles. She knew that she probably wouldn't succeed, but it was very well worth a shot.

"Hey, Honey." Hiro pipped, rolling around her station on a skateboard.

She nearly dropped the bottle of dissolved sulfur she had been holding with her free hand at the sudden sound. She placed the bottle back down on the table, pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, and peered down at Hiro who was now rolling back and forth behind her lab table.

"Yes, Hiro?" she smiled brightly. "Do you need something?"

"You're working on something about isotopes, right?" he rolled to the left.

"Yes, well, I'm not physically working with them," she laughed lightly, "cause y'know, they're radioactive… What about them?"

"I'm thinking about stabilizing them enough to power our suits for more efficiency." Hiro explained, stopping and kicking his board into his arm.

"Hm." Honey tapped her chin thoughtfully, before her expression brightened. "I suppose we could try, but we should run some simulations before we try the real thing!"

"Sweet." Hiro grinned, dropping his skateboard and hopping back on it.

With that, the two began to make their way towards the simulation room. On their way to their destination, they came across one cursing Gogo. Said Gogo was madly scribbling away in a notepad and rapidly blowing and popping her bubblegum.

"Er, Gogo," Hiro spoke after he exchanged a look with Honey, "are you having a mental breakdown right now? Do you need some therapy?"

"Argh!" Gogo replied nonsensically as she shoved the notebook she had been writing on in his face. "Look at this! This is simple physics! And that guy just defied it!"

"Excuse me?" Hiro muttered, exchanging another glance with Honey Lemon.

"Okay, so my frictionless disks... no friction right?" Gogo asked him hotly.

"Er," Hiro answered, "that _is_ what frictionless-means…"

"Well yeah, when I threw my disk at that masked guy," Gogo continued, pointing at some calculations she had written up, "there's no question that it encountered air resistance, right?"

"Well, yeah…" Hiro nodded, before he paused and frowned. "Is this about how the masked guy was able to catch your disks?"

"Hell yes it is!" She shouted hotly, before she pointed towards another calculation she had made. "I threw the disk horizontally right? Even taking that and gravity into account, that guy shouldn't have been able to catch the disk!"

"Look, Gogo," Honey murmured lightly, "I know that you're upset about—

"But," Gogo interrupted, "my disks were designed so that air resistance would be almost negligible. That means, acceleration happened! Even if we keep this simple and calculate the velocity and the amount of time it took to reach the distance of that bastard's face… the fact that he caught it… Ugh! It defies physics."

It was then that Wasabi appeared and stood gaping at Gogo.

"Uh, wow," He blinked at her fuming expression, "I've seen you really annoyed, but I've never seen you this angry before.

"My disks have a mass about ten thousand grams — that's ten kilograms — and if you multiply that by its acceleration… that's a force of one-hundred newtons waiting to happen!"

"Wait," Wasabi gaped, "your disks are that heavy?!"

"Yes!" Gogo answered with a final huff, blowing a strand of hair away from her face. She then sighed quietly and crossed her arms: "What I'm saying is… I don't think that kitsune guy was human."

Fred then decided that it was his turn to join the conversation. He flung his arms around Gogo's and Wasabi's shoulders as he approached the gathered group and peered at them with a dazed yet strangely calm expression.

"Who knows?" he finally said after a long and drawn out moment of silence. "Maybe he's some sort of failed human experiment or something. Maybe he's on steroids. Maybe that's why he's an anti-hero!" Fred untangled himself and clapped his hands loudly. "This is another revenge story!"

"Er…" Hiro glanced to the side. "Right…"

"I personally don't believe that Kitsune is a bad guy." Honey said with a fluttering voice. "He did help Wasabi, after all!"

"Well, _I_ personally think that that guy can kick some serious—" Wasabi began, before he glanced down at Hiro and cleared his throat, "—kick some serious…. butt."

Hiro rolled his eyes.

"I sense high levels of hormones within all six of you." came a robotic, yet warm voice. "Although it could be that all of you are still at the brink of your adolescents and therefore still experience symptoms of moodiness because of it, I am going to assume that you're distress is caused by the masked vigilante."

"Woah," Fred chuckled, "who said that I was feeling distressed? It is supes cool that we've got another guy on our side."

"'A guy on our side'?" Gogo scoffed. "Yeah, I would love having a guy who enjoys frying people alive on my side, cause why not?"

"Would it help if I inform you of what I know of the vigilante's whereabouts from the news media?" Baymax suggested with a slow blink.

"The guy's been on the news?" Hiro frowned as he turned towards his partner. He nodded at him, "Go ahead. Show us."

Baymax's stomach flickered for a moment; and the five adolescents turned their heads towards the flickering. A screen soon replaced that flickering. It was a recording of a news report from the previous week, the headline being something along the lines of 'Disappearing CEO, Bank-robbery-kidnapping, Slaughter in the Underground — Related?'.

A newswoman, dressed in a clean and orderly suit, appeared on the screen. She smiled brightly and held up a sketch of a kitsune mask along with sketches of other masks for the viewers to see.

"We all know that this is the era of superheroes," the woman reporter began, "but aren't these heroes a little bit questionable?"

"Oh great." Hiro rolled his eyes. "It's one of _these_ news channels."

"Haters gonna hate, bro." was Fred's only comment.

"Recently, a new vigilante has shown his face in San Fransokyo." the woman continued, gesturing towards the sketches. "His alias is currently and simply 'Kitsune'. This title originates from the kitsune-like masks that he has left at his intervention areas."

"I wonder why he does that." Hiro frowned lopsidedly.

"He appears to be more well-trained than the city's eponymous Big Hero Six," the woman continued, "judging from the CCTV records of his performance at the Sansokyou Rank-Bank robbery."

Gogo and Hiro visibly made expressions that were evidently displeased.

"That's not true." Hiro scowled even harder. "We could've handled that situation fine even if that guy wasn't there."

"But where do Kitsune's allegiances lie?" the woman frowned with a shake of her head. "He is believed to be involved with the disappearance of Edward Yamoto, CEO of the CASCO corporation, and at least somewhat related to the underground hangings."

"Underground hangings?" Honey whispered. "What's that?"

She was quickly shushed by the others. Said shushing was for nothing in the end, however. A loud beeping sound emanating from Baymax's chest cut the news report off short. In the screen's place was the blinking symbol of a phone.

"Hiro, you have a call." Baymax informed with a tilt of his head.

"I can see that." Hiro replied with raised eyebrows. "Answer, but cut off the video feed from our side."

"Alright, Hiro."

The phone symbol blinked out of existence and was replaced by the video feed of a business-looking, middle-aged man sitting at his desk. Said man was sweating profusely and shaking in his chair. It was evident that he was doing everything in his ability to keep himself together.

"Is this the Big Hero Six's telephone line?" the man questioned in a raspy voice.

"Yes." Hiro coughed, trying in his best ability to be as formal and authoritative as the man before him. "Are you in need of our services?"

"'Are you in need of our services?'" Gogo mocked him from behind, causing nearly everyone to erupt with laughter.

"Shut up!" Hiro huffed, whacking her on the shoulder.

"Is there a problem?" the man from the screen questioned, folding his hands on his desk.

"Nope! Of course not!" Hiro replied with a deeper voice. "Are you in distress?"

"No, but..." the man replied uneasily. "My daughter is…"

"Wait a minute!" Wasabi blurted out as he straightened himself and jabbed a finger at Baymax's belly-screen. "You're Kenji Brian! The sponsor of CASCO's biological division!"

The man on the screen started but quickly recomposed himself. He nodded deeply with tired eyes and leaned back in his chair.

"I am indeed Kenji Brian." he confirmed. His eyebrows furrowed, and he leaned forward again. "My daughter has been kidnapped and is being held hostage for ransom."

"Oh my…" Honey gasped, covering her mouth. She stepped forward and peered into the screen, despite the fact that the man could not see her. "Have you told any of the authorities about this?"

"No." he replied, lowering his head. "I need to keep this incident confidential."

"What?!" Gogo shouted with a disgusted look plastered onto her face. "She's your daughter!"

Hiro held his hand out to calm her down, ignoring the fact that she couldn't actually do the old man any physical harm. He waited for her to cool her rage and watched as a guilt-stricken expression crossed the man's face before he decided to break the silence.

"We understand." Hiro acknowledged. "Any details about her kidnapping would be helpful."

"She was kidnapped around two hours ago." Kenji informed, clasping his hands together and rubbing his sweating palms. "The ransom letter I found was written by one of my ex-secretaries and demanded that I hand over a certain package to him by six o'clock sharp tomorrow. I believe he has hired a group to work under him."

All six members of the team glanced up at the digital clock that blinked above the doorway. It read 2:49.

"Do you have your ex-secretaries medical records?" Hiro questioned, crossing his arms.

"Yes…" the man frowned after a long pause. "Why?"

"I need you to send them to me right away." Hiro smirked. "We'll have your daughter back to you before you can count to ten!" He clicked the hang-up button and turned towards his team. "Well?"

"Why not?" Gogo shrugged.

"Oh yeah!" Fred yelled loudly, fist-pumping the air.

And the four dispersed to get their things and to equip their gear. The laboratory was soon filled with a cacophony of clacks and clangs that resounded and echoed loudly.

"Alright," Hiro nodded, leaning his back against Baymax's soft belly, "prepare your scanners, buddy. We're going to be scanning the entire city."

"Flying to the blimps?" the robot blinked.

"Flying to the blimps." Hiro nodded.

* * *

Kitsune stared down at the dockyard from his perch on the steel pillar that was being held up by construction machinery. The yard was naturally dark from all the shade that the hanging machinery provided, but it was even darker than usual that day due to the fact that storm clouds hung heavily overhead. The dark made the waves that crashed against the extended docks seem ominous.

It had taken him hours to get the right answers out of the right people to find this place. And now he was a few straws short of irritated. He just wanted to get this whole ordeal over with at this point. All he needed to do now was locate his target and capture him. Of course, he would have to torture his target for answers after that, but that was just a minor detail.

A shadow passed beneath him. A man in a ragged hoody was making his way around a red, metal shipping container. A guard then?

Kitsune poised his legs beneath him and reached for his blade behind him. He decided that, since he was so irritated at the moment, he would take his anger out on the guards. He hadn't quite decided whether or not he would kill them yet. They _were_ scum off the earth, but it would take forever to clean up their corpses. Pushing that decision aside, he prepared to pounce as the guard passed beneath him. A small voice stopped his onslaught.

"Excuse me?" came the quiet, boyish voice.

Kitsune turned his head and watched as a young boy emerged from behind a crate. The boy appeared to be of Asian descent; but Kitsune was only assuming that due to the fact that couldn't see the kid's facial features too clearly from the angle he was at.

What a stupid kid. Darwinism would take its course.

"Hey!" the guard shouted as he ran over the kid. "What are you doing over there?"

"I-I got lost…" the boy stuttered, shrinking backwards. "Can you tell me how to get out of this dockyard… please?"

Hm. Kitsune supposed that he _could_ use the boy's distraction to his advantage. On the other hand, he was somewhat eager to see if the guard would kill the boy or not. So, instead of slinking throughout the dockyard and completing his mission, Kitsune kept his place and studied the scene unfolding before him.

"Ugh." the guard slapped his forehead and rubbed his face. "Look kid, if you follow the yellow signs, you'll get out of here in no time. Now scram!"

"B-But…" the kid whimpered, shrinking back slightly. "I'm scared to go alone!... Mister, would you please come with me?"

"What?!" the guard gapped, before he roughly shook his head. "No way!"

The boy began to whimper and let out a loud sob. The guard was left flustered.

"Hey, hey! Shut up!" the guard shouted, awkwardly patting the boy on the shoulder. "Fine! Quit crying! I'll get you out of here… Follow me."

And the two began to trek into the maze of the dockyard. Kitsune decided that he would have some fun; and he followed them deftly and quietly along the steel pillars.

"Aren't you too old to be crying?" the guard grumbled as the kid happily skipped beside him. "Aren't you fourteen or something?"

"Yes, actually." the boy smiled, before he paused in place and peered into a dark alleyway. "Hey, mister…"

The guard stopped walking and back-trekked to where the kid was standing. He roughly grabbed the kid by the arm and yanked him in the direction they were originally heading. The kid fought back and pointed to the alleyway with an excited expression.

"Look! Do you see that?" the boy gasped ecstatically, before he yanked himself free of the man's grasp and darted into the alleyway.

"Kid!" the man shouted, looking around worriedly. "Kid, wait!" He paused, looking into the alleyway and then at his surroundings again, before he sighed deeply. "I don't get paid enough for this…"

With that, he followed the boy into the darkness.

Kitsune leapt from the steel bar down onto the alleyway top below him and ran along it. He peered into the darkness, attempting to locate the boy and the guard. He found the boy staring up at the dead-end wall of the alley. The guard was at his side in moments, bending over to catch his breath.

"Kid…"

The boy turned around and, much to both Kitsune's and the guard's surprises, was wearing a smirk.

"Honey, now!" the boy shouted.

There was an explosion of pink that raised up an equally pink dust cloud. When the dust cloud of pink cleared, the guard was revealed to be covered from mouth to toe with a pink, gooey substance. Beside his frozen form stood the smirking boy (who was now dressed in purple armor), a red giant of a man (?), and a pink-armored girl. The trio did a three-way high-five and yipped quietly to themselves.

It took a moment for Kitsune to recognize them as three of the six whom he had encountered at the bank. When this realization hit him, he smirked dissonantly. How amusing. They were learning.

"So you _can_ teach a dog new tricks."

"We're all clear here." the purple-suited boy said aloud, apparently speaking into a communicator of some sort. There was a pause of silence. "It's all clear over there too? Sweet. I think that's all of the guards then."

Hm? Kitsune blinked down in half-hearted surprise. Had they managed to take out all of the guards? He supposed he was a bit more enthusiastically interested now.

"Hiro, there is one more life signature that we have not apprehended yet." the red giant man stated calmly. "That person is located right above us."

Kitsune smirked beneath his mask. He briefly wondered how the man had managed to identify his location. He straightened himself and prepared to slip into the shadows before the trio could locate him in the darkness. However, much to his surprise, the purple-suited boy's head snapped up immediately; and Kitsune was able to see the boy's face clearly for the first time ever.

Slanted and intelligent eyes were hidden behind the boy's purple-tinted screen-helmet. Wispy, black hair framed the boy's face like a lion's mane.

For the first time in a very long time, Kitsune felt his heart skip a beat. He stumbled backwards, his breathing becoming labored and the world around him swarming with static. Confusion settled in.

_Focus, Kitsune. Focus and survive._

And the confusion dissipated.

He remembered what he needed to do. He needed to quickly locate and capture his target. He needed to complete his mission. With these thoughts in mind, he came to a stand and ran along the roof of the alley building and headed towards the red, steel shipping container.

He shook his head and allowed order to return to his mind. He briefly wondered why he had been so tempted to follow the boy in the first place. Sure, he had been bored; and sure, he hadn't been in a hurry to complete his mission, but still… Perhaps it was just the cruelty lying in him that made him do it.

He increased his speed; and in a matter of moments, the shipping container was in his sights.

The container was open.

Light was pouring out from it in waves. Six figures stood in this light and appeared to be facing off against each other. Three of them stood gathered together and tensed at the very edge of the container, while the other three were slowly edging away from it.

With closer inspection, it became evident that the three standing closest to the container were members of the purple-suited boy's team, while Kitsune's target was among the other three. Kitsune gazed at the latter trio intently and came to realize that one of the three was being held at gunpoint.

 _The daughter_ , Kitsune concluded. His gaze shifted towards the man who flanked her right and who was holding a gun to her temple. _My target._ The gun-wielding man's hands were shaking. _Pathetic._

Kitsune's gaze drifted towards the hero trio; and his interest became piqued again. He wanted to see how this would play out.

"Woah," the green-suited hero drew out slowly as he stepped towards the other three, "look now, Mr. Pierce, I know that you haven't been getting along well with Mr. Brian, but isn't kidnapping his daughter taking it a bit far?"

"You don't understand." Kitsune's target, Mr. Pierce, cried aloud as he pressed the nose of the gun deeper into Brian's daughter's temple.

Kitsune decided that the man's voice annoyed him. Not only was his target not strong enough to pull the trigger right then and there, but he also had the gall to try and evoke sympathy from his pursuers. Perhaps Kitsune would cut out the man's tongue and have him write the information that he needed down by hand instead of screaming it out loud.

Kitsune dug into his belt and pulled out a throwing knife. He would need to take out his target's remaining hired guard first.

He aimed carefully, breathed in, breathed out, and thre—

"You!" came a shout from behind him. "Stop!"

The knife soared through the air and hit his target's guard in the arm. A miss.

His target let out a scream and backtracked, dragging Brian's daughter along with him. He was evidently attempting to escape.

Kitsune leapt down onto the dirty ground, missing the purple-suited boy and his two teammates by a second. He charged forward, digging into his belt and grasping several more throwing knives in his palms. He could hear the footsteps of the other six participants of the chase close behind him, but he ignored them.

His target, the hostage, and his target's daughter were now running along the edge of one of the wooden docks. His target screamed loudly and chucked his gun in Kitsune's general direction.

 _Pathetic and_ _stupid_ , Kitsune thought suppressing a dry laugh.

A sudden, high-pitched whirring noise resonated throughout the air, and what appeared to be a large hoverboard descended from the clouded sky. The board darted towards Kitsune's target, and the latter hopped onto it as it reached his side. He pulled the daughter on with him, and his guard followed suit.

Kitsune increased his speed and prepared to throw his knife at them without caring who he hit. His preparation ended abruptly, however, as a yellow disk shot out from above his head and hurtled towards the escaping hoverboard. The disk made contact with one of the men riding the board and effectively knocked the said man off of his feet. The man tumbled to the ground and hit the dock with a loud thud as the hoverboard disappeared into the distance.

Kitsune reached the fallen man first and blinked expressionlessly as he realized that the fallen man was not his target. He bent down close to the groaning man and studied his pained face.

"You were acquainted with my target." Kitsune stated simply as his hand drifted towards the man's hand; he grabbed the man's pinky between his fingertips and applied pressure, "It wouldn't be too much for me to assume that you know where he's gone off to, would it?"

"I-I don't know!" the man whimpered, despite the fact that Kitsune had yet to deal him any real pain.

Kitsune glowered at him and prepared to draw his blade out. His preparation was, however, cut short once more as he was forcefully tackled to the side by a flash of yellow. He then found himself being pinned down by an angry female adolescent who was making wild grabs for his mask. Kitsune quickly knocked her back with his feet and came to a stand.

The six people whom he had encountered at the bank now stood before him. In fact, the only thing separating them was the groaning, fallen man. The open sea behind him prevented Kitsune's escape.

Kitsune narrowed his eyes as the yellow-suited woman came to a stand and glared at him hotly. He reached for his katana and grasped its hilt. Six people, six slashes — five slashes maybe, if they were angled correctly.

"Man," the reptile-suited adolescent murmured loudly under his breath, "is this going to be our first hero versus anti-hero showdown?... Sweet!"

Kitsune briefly wondered whether or not the reptile-suited adolescent was on drugs.

"How about we not fight with the guy who practically took out an entire gang at the bank last week?" the green-suited man suggested.

"How about we just go kick his ass?" the yellow-suited woman scowled, punching her hand into her palm.

Yes, five slashes would do.

"Wait!" the purple-suited adolescent shouted as he stepped forward.

Kitsune felt his head swarm again, and it took everything in his power not to take a step backwards.

"Kitsune," the boy continued, "look, it seems as if we're after the same guy. Why don't we just work together?"

"What?!" the yellow-suited and green-suited adolescents shouted in unison.

Kitsune wasn't the least bit surprised. The boy was young and an idelaist — optimistic. Naive. Despite this fact, Kitsune mulled over the proposal. He weighed his pros and cons carefully. How would working with the six of them benefit him? He calculated zero benefits.

"Baymax here can track the guy that we're both after," the boy continued, gesturing towards the large, red man (?) behind him.

Kitsune paused.

There was one benefit in the bag.

He glanced at the red man and then at the other five poised around him. He had two options: knockout/eliminate the extra five and force the big red guy to track down his target, or work together with them. The choice that was most logical and equipped with the least amount of complications was obvious.

Despite this obvious choice, Kitsune found himself sheathing his blade.


	4. Fourth Encounter: Tomodachi (友達)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What can be considered a friend?

Hiro's heart skipped a beat and a relieved smile washed over his face as he saw Kitsune sheathed his blade. Why Hiro wanted to work together with Kitsune so badly, he himself didn't exactly know. On the other hand, Hiro most definitely did know why Gogo rued even the thought of working with the masked man.

"You have got to be kidding me." Gogo scoffed, crossing her arms, before she angrily jerked her thumb in Kitsune's direction. "I am _not_ working with a guy who wouldn't hesitate to slash a person to bits!"

"Aw, come on, Gogo, be nice. We must give him a chance, at least." Honey smiled lightly from behind her as she stepped forward and extended her hand towards Kitsune. "I'm Honey Lemon."

Kitsune didn't move to take her hand but stared at it (or seemed to stare at it — it was hard to tell since his expression was hidden away beneath his mask) like it was an alien object. Seeing this, Honey stepped forward, took Kitsune's hand into her own,and shook it enthusiastically. Kitsune's hand was tense, awkward, and cold in her grip.

Honey smiled even brighter and stepped backwards, signaling the others with a slight tilt of her head to introduce themselves. There was a tense moment of awkwardness. In the moment following, Wasabi stepped forward and extended his hand as well.

"They call me Wasabi. Don't ask why" he introduced himself with a joke, lowering his hand when he realized that Kitsune wasn't taking it. The green-suited adolescent man swore that he saw Kitsune raise an eyebrow at the name from beneath his mask.

"It's Gogo." Gogo nodded, glaring at him darkly. "No need to memorize it."

"Yo, my anti-hero dude-friend," Fred drew slowly with his arms waving wildly about. "They call me Fredzillaaa."

Kitsune took a step backwards, crossing his arms in the process. Gogo snickered at the sight.

"My name's Hiro," Hiro gestured to himself, before thumbing back and pointing towards Baymax, "and this is Baymax, my robot."

Kitsune visibly started at the introduction, but the movement escaped notice.

There was another long pause of awkward silence.

All six heroes stared at the anti-hero expectantly; and he stared back at them expectantly.

"Well, Fox-face," Gogo raised an eyebrow, "are you going to introduce yourself or are you too cool to do that too?"

"Mr. Kitsune," came Baymax's mechanical voice, "I am having difficulty clearly scanning your biological profile. Have you, by chance, been taking any biologically-altering medication?"

"I'm getting tired of this child's play," Kitsune finally spoke, ignoring the robot's question and causing the five human heroes to start with surprise.

The masked man's voice was deep and somewhat raspy, like he hadn't spoken in a very long time. Despite this fact, all six members of the team found that his voice gave them an odd sensation of... de ja vu.

"The only reason I'm even remotely standing your presence is because your robot will benefit me." Kitsune continued. "The longer we draw this out, the farther my target is getting away."

"Should you really be saying that to the person who owns the robot?" Hiro asked snarkily.

"I could always take the robot for myself." Kitsune suggested back, his voice gaining a dark edge.

"I'd like to see you try." Gogo smirked.

"Woah, guys!" Wasabi intervened, waving his hands up high. "We're on the same team, remember? Let's just hurry up and catch the bad guy and save that little girl!"

Another awkward pause of silence passed.

"Aight, Baymax," Hiro nodded upwards towards the robot, "where is the perp at?"

The robot straightened himself up and his eyes lit up with brightness. He cocked his head to the left, before turning to look down at Hiro. Hiro blinked back up at him expectantly.

"You are so short and squishy, Hiro." the robot giggled suddenly.

"...the fuck." Kitsune deadpanned.

"Oh no…" Hiro sighed, rubbing his temples.

"He's low on power _again_ …?" Honey Lemon frowned worriedly.

"Hiro, I am running low on power." came Baymax's stuttering confirmation.

"Didn't you charge him?" Gogo frowned unimpressed.

"I charged him this morning!" Hiro sighed with exasperation as he helped to support Baymax's swaying form. "He shouldn't be drained out _now_..."

"Is there a problem?" Kitsune questioned, sounding evidently displeased with the current situation.

"If you want to catch your 'target'," Hiro explained with the hint of snarkiness still evident in his voice, "we're going to have to go and recharge Baymax."

Kitsune didn't reply; instead, an air of hostility and irritation arose around him.

"It's cool, guys," Fred pipped as he dug into his suit and pulled out his cellphone, "I'll just call my butler and tell him to pick us up." He turned towards Hiro as he placed his cell to his ear, "So is the charger-thingy-mi-doo at the university or your house?"

Hiro answered positive at the former.

"You should call the cops while your at it," Gogo nodded at him, before she nodded back at the dockyard, "so they can pick up this," she kicked the groaning guard's body, "and the other unconscious freaks back there."

Fred nodded with an easy smile — a smile which brightened when his butler apparently answered his call.

Needless to say, it was the most awkward limo-ride in existence.

* * *

When the limo came to a stop at the doors of San Fransokyo's Robotics building, the doors to the vehicle literally flew open. The passengers filed out of the car quickly and quietly, coming to a stop before the building's stairs.

Fred knocked on the limo's window to signal it to leave, and it sped away into the darkening day.

"Welcome to nerd school," Hiro gestured widely with his free hand that was supporting Baymax's slumping form.

Kitsune didn't reply.

It appeared as if he was completely captured by the sight of the structure. This fact made a little feeling of pride bud in the students' hearts.

"I guess we can quickly show you around if you want, while Baymax is charging." Hiro continued, crossing his one free arm and raising his eyebrows at the masked man.

Kitsune continued to stare at the building unmovingly.

"Hey, earth to Fox-face." Gogo frowned, waving her hand in front of his face.

He didn't respond. Finding himself filled with sudden worry, Hiro stepped forward and grabbed Kitsune's arm. He gave him a hard shake and jumped back with surprise as Kitsune recoiled.

"Don't touch me." Kitsune snapped; he then nodded his head towards the building. "Hurry up and charge your machinery."

"Jeez," Hiro scowled, "someone sure is moody today."

With that, the group of seven ascended the stairs and entered the building. Once inside, Hiro (with Wasabi's help of course) carried Baymax to his designated room to recharge him; and Honey ran to her lab table to quickly replenish her chemical formula bubbles; which left Fred and Gogo the responsibility of keeping an eye on Kitsune.

The said masked-man was currently leaning against a wall with crossed arms. Annoyance radiated from him in waves.

"Sooo," Fred drew out slowly as he spun in an equally slow circle, "aren't you cold or something?" He was eyeing Kitsune's sleeveless, white Chinese shirt with raised eyebrows.

Kitsune, of course, didn't answer.

"Where did you get those sick scars from?" Fred continued, gesturing towards the burns that ate up Kitsune's arm. "Is it like a top-secret origin story kind of deal?"

No answer again.

"Do you have a team?"

No answer.

"Have you ever killed anyone before?"

"Do you really want to find out." Kitsune stated coolly, turning to pointedly glare at Fred.

"Uh," Fred smiled easily, "well yeah. That's why I asked, dude."

Kitsune pointedly glared at him again, but the glare seemed to fly right over Fred's head.

"Hey, you don't happen to know Yokai, do you?" Fred tried again after a minute of silence. "Y'know, Professor Callaughan?"

Kitsune started at the name and unfolded his arms.

"I mean, he had the same kabuki-mask-theme going on as you do," Fred continued. "It's a shame that he went all evil and stuff. He was my favorite teacher at this school."

"Really." was Kitsune's reply. The curtness of it betrayed the spark of interest in his eye.

* * *

Honey Lemon smiled with satisfaction as she filled up the last vial of her chemical set. She inserted the vial into a slot in her purse and snapped the purse close. She turned and began to leave the laboratory room when a sudden noise from the opposite direction made her pause. She tilted her head and realized that the sound was coming from behind the locker room door that rested at the very back of the laboratory. She approached it slowly and cracked it open.

Under the dim, flickering lights of the room sat Kitsune on a wooden bench. He was holding something pointed and tube-like in the air with his left hand. The tube was filled with a clear, blue-colored substance. He slowly inserted the tube's needle-like end into his arm.

Honey Lemon recalled seeing such a substance from somewhere before — although, she didn't quite remember where. She did, however, remember what the substance was and what it did.

She pushed the door open and entered the room, allowing the door to close fully behind her. She watched as the masked-man turned his head in her direction.

"So…" she whispered quietly, clasping her hands together, "so… that's how you were able to catch Gogo's disks. You're using biological and physical enhancements..."

Kitsune turned his eyes back towards the syringe he was holding and pressed down on the lever. The blue liquid dissipated downwards.

"Using those is really dangerous!" Honey Lemon continued, her eyebrows furrowing with worry. "You could overdose and...die."

"I'm careful." Kitsune finally replied as he pulled the now empty syringe out of his forearm and placed it down beside him.

"Why do you use it for…?" Honey questioned quietly, her gaze falling to the floor. "You seem plenty skilled already."

"I'm not _physically_ strong enough." Kitsune replied in monotone. He shivered visibly, and it was evident that the drug was beginning to take effect. "It's for survival."

"Surviving..." Honey frowned, "but what about living?"

"Is there a difference?"

* * *

Kitsune found himself walking down one of the many hallways in the building. He wouldn't ever admit that he was lost, but he was lost. He stared disinterestedly at the many doors that lined the hall. Silver nameplates were nailed to each and every door, and they glistened in the dim light. He read each and every name and even mocked some of the odd-sounding ones. But then hecame across a name that made his stomach do an odd flip.

He stopped by the door that held this name and stared at the nameplate intently. It read — Hamada Tadashi.

He suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He hadn't felt so uneasy in such a long time. Pushing this uneasiness aside, he reached for the doorknob. Before he could turn the knob and open the door, however, he found himself being grasped on the wrist by a yellow-gloved hand.

He blinked upwards and registered the person known as 'Gogo" glaring at him. He stared back at her blankly from behind his mask.

"That was a very long 'bathroom break'." she glared, making air quotes with her fingers. She paused and glanced at the door he had been about to open. Her gaze then softened and became melancholy. "Let's go see if Baymax is done charging yet." she finally said.

Baymax was indeed done charging. In fact, he was practically up and ready to go. He, along with all the others, were waiting outside when Kitsune and Gogo finally exited the building.

"Yo!" Fred waved at them loosely and with his usual easy smile. "Join the party, man!"

"Yeah, guys!" Wasabi nodded in agreement. "We need to hurry up and go rescue that poor girl!"

"If it's the girl you're worried about," Kitsune glowered, side-glancing at Wasabi as he descended the stairs, "Pierce won't harm her."

"Yeah?" Gogo scoffed from beside him. "And how do you know that, genius?"

"It was obvious." he replied. "He was too weak to pull the trigger. If I were him, I would've at least shot her leg to make my point."

"You're really messed up, y'know that?" Hiro rhetorically questioned with a raised eyebrow. He then turned his head towards Baymax who was idly standing beside him and gazing at the sky. "You've got a lock on Pierce right, Baymax?"

"Yes, Hiro," Baymax nodded in confirmation, "but Mr. Pierce is currently in motion, so I cannot confirm his location."

"Guess we'll have to chase him then." Hiro sighed as he hopped onto Baymax's back. Honey Lemon and Gogo climbed up the robot's back as well and flanked Hiro at his sides.

Kitsune stared at the sight with slight surprise. This surprise grew as he saw Baymax reach over to loosely hold Wasabi and Fred in his large hands.

"What are you doing exactly." he deadpanned again.

"Well, we're not going to walk all the way there." Hiro answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "And we definitely aren't taking the bus either. And Baymax can fly." He gestured behind him, "Here, Kitsune, you can sit behind me — you'll have to hold on tight though."

"I'd rather slit my own throat." Kitsune replied simply as he turned to leave.

Hiro rolled his eyes and smirked; and the next moment saw to Kitsune being scooped up in Baymax's arms. Without skipping a beat, Baymax activated his thrusters with Hiro's guidance and the team of seven took off to the sky.

The darkening horizon unfolded before them and sunk below them as they rose higher and higher into the air. Wind whipped forcefully at their faces, so much so that Kitsune's mask began to slip off. He made a grab for it and forcefully clamped it to his face. He soon realized that the knot holding it in place had unraveled. He remained in that god-awful and uncomfortable position for the remainder of the flight.

* * *

Baymax came to a slow and descended as a rickety old warehouse that rested on one San Franksokyo's more unknown bays came into view. His scanners indicated that Pierce was located just within the warehouse, but they also indicated something a bit more disturbing.

He alighted onto the ground and released the three adolescents he had been holding in his grip. The three who sat on his back quickly climbed their way down.

"Hiro—" he began, before a retching sound cut him off short.

He turned his eyes towards the masked vigilante who was currently bent over and emptying his stomach contents onto the floor. The other five adolescents were laughing loudly at the sight.

"So," Gogo cackled as she held her stomach tightly, "the high-and-mighty anti-hero can't stomach a little air drift, huh?"

"Air drift?" Kitsune scoffed, his voice suddenly sounding warmer than it previously was. "That was like riding a roller coaster to hell!"

Everyone laughed even harder — everyone save for yellow-suited adolescent froze as he spoke those words, and she stared at him with both surprise and suspicion.

"Would you like for me to provide you with some gastral relaxants?" Baymax suggested as he approached Kitsune.

Said Kitsune immediately straightened himself up and went to retighten his mask to his face. His hands dropped back to his sides, marking the return of his cold and formal aura.

"Is it safe for me to assume that my target is inside this warehouse." Kitsune deadpanned in his strange way again, his gaze drifting towards Baymax.

"That is correct," Baymax confirmed. "My scanners indicate that Pierce is indeed inside the warehouse. My scanners also indicate two other life signatures within the warehouse. Hiro, I am worried."

"Worried about what?" Hiro laughed. "One of those life signatures must belong to Kenji's daughter… The other one must be another guard or something, but we can take him!"

"It is not that Hiro." Baymax answered. "There are other biological signatures in the warehouse as well. Ten in all."

"No worries, man!" Fred laughed from beside him. "We can take a whole army of them!"

"I sense ten biological signatures," Baymax repeated, "but only three life signatures."

"What is that supposed to…"

Then it dawned on them all.

Kitsune immediately began to sprint towards the warehouse, ignoring the warnings and protests of the other six. He reached the large, double doors of the rickety structure and kicked them open just as the other six reached his side.

It was dark in the warehouse; and it took several seconds for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. What lay in the darkness was what a sane person would equate to a nightmare. There wasn't any blood, per se. In fact, no corpses littered the floor at all. The corpses were hanging high above their heads by metal-wired nooses.

"Oh my…" Honey Lemon whispered, tears beginning to fill her eyes. "These poor people…"

Wasabi swallowed the bile that was rising in his throat.

"What…" Hiro muttered. "What happened here?"

Kitsune stepped forward and approached one of the hanging corpses. He reached into his belt and pulled out a throwing knife. He aimed the knife just above the corpse's head and threw. The corpse collapsed with a sickening thud to the ground.

(Honey and Hiro tried to ignore the fact that he was treating the corpse as if it were mere ragdoll.)

"W-What are you doing?!" Gogo hissed.

Kitsune approached the fallen corpse, turned it on its back, and stared at what appeared to be its face. The other six followed his gaze and realized that the corpse was wearing a mask.

Gogo ran forward, grabbed Kitsune by the scruff, and shook him with all the strength in her body. Her eyes were burning, and her heart was burning. The former was burning with held back tears, while the latter was burning with rage.

"You did this!" she shouted, throwing him to the ground.

Kitsune quickly stood up and bent over to remove the mask from the corpse's face.

"I didn't do this." he stated simply, holding the mask up for them to see. Under his breath, he muttered a single word: "Hebi…"

The mask had a far different design from his own. For one, the mask was dyed a completely red color coupled swirling black patterns. Secondly, the mask was fatter; and instead of having ears protruding from its top, it had two large fangs extending from its bottom. It was a snake mask.

"Oh yeah?" Gogo growled, unconvinced, "If it wasn't you, then who did it?"

Kitsune paused and then turned his head upwards, gazing up at the darkness of the ceiling. He sighed deeply and tiredly.

"Hebi." He called out loudly. "I know that you're here."

A unison of rattling sounds hit the air and three objects tumbled down from the ceiling, causing Honey Lemon to yelp in surprise. These three objects didn't hit the ground; rather, they swung suspended in the air by three separate metal wires. It soon became apparent that these three objects were not objects but people. Two of these people were letting out a string of incomprehensible cries and shouts, while the person who swung in-between them was cackling with laughter.

"Okay," Wasabi muttered, "what the actual fuck?"

"Look!" Fred shouted, pointing towards the two people swinging at the left and right. "It's Pierce and Kenji's daughter!"

"What are you doing here, Hebi?" Kitsune asked coldly. "This isn't your jurisdiction."

"You know this crazy chick!?"

"I know, I know!" the chain-swinging girl sighed pleasantly, as she swung side to side, bumping the two beside her. "But I finished my mission already, and I was sooo bored!" She began swinging back and forth — backwards towards the team and forwards towards Kitsune. "I was waiting for you to come here and finish your mission, but you took sooo long!" She swung forward enough so that she could gently pat Kitsune on the shoulder. "So I decided to wrap things up for yo—

She was cut off as a yellow disk spun through the air above her. This disk spun and spun, until it effectively cut the three wires suspending her and her 'hostages'. She collapsed on the ground with a thud, while Baymax caught Kenji's daughter and Wasabi caught Pierce.

The yellow disk spun around like a frisbee and returned to its owner's hand.

"So you're the bitch who did this," Gogo hissed as she re-equipped her disk.

The formerly wire-hanging girl came to a stand and brushed off the dust that had collected on her shirt. Said shirt perfectly resembled Kitsune's own shirt, save for the fact that it was red in color. Gogo noted this with growing anger.

The girl, Hebi, glowered at Gogo with her jaded green eyes that contrasted her dark hair and skin. Wasabi, Honey, and Hiro noted that she appeared to be around Hiro's own age.

"What?" Hebi scoffed as she rudely thumbed at them and blinked up at Kitsune. "You're with _these_ people again, Kitsune? I'm jealous! It's like the loser crowd! This isn't like you!"

"Why?"

Hebi turned her brown head and blinked confusedly at the one who had asked the question. Hiro stood in her sights with his fists clenched tightly at his sides.

"Why?" he repeated again firmly, gazing directly into Hebi's eyes before he turned to look at Kitsune. "Are you with her?"

Kitsune didn't answer.

"'Why'?" Hebi laughed loudly after a long pause of silence. She turned towards Kitsune and hit him amicably in the chest as she wiped a tear from her eye. "Look at this brat, Kitsune! He's asking why I killed these people! Can you believe it?"

"Hebi," Kitsune muttered darkly, casting an iron grip on her shoulder, "you need to control yourself."

"Well, you brat," she grinned widely, evidently ignoring the pain, "I'll tell you why — I did it because I could!"

The air became chilled.

"Well, _that_ and because these people are the scum of the earth!" she cackled with a finish. "They're complete trash! I mean, look at them! They're thugs! They're murderers and rapists! Might as well kill them before they fuck things up for other people right, Kitsune?" She nudged Kitsune with her elbow. When she came to realize that Kitsune evidently was not going to reply to her query, she turned to face him in confusion: "Kitsune…?"

Her voice caught in her throat as she saw the cold and murderous glint hidden behind the eyeholes of Kitsune's mask. She swallowed her sudden fear, however, and glowered back at him.

"What's the matter with you?" she hissed as she slapped him in the chest. Her eyes widened suddenly, and she looked back at the six heroes who stood frozen in place. "Don't tell me that it's them, 'cause that's way too ironic to be real!"

"Don't be mistaken." he replied coolly. "I'm not disappointed that you've killed these people, Hebi. I'm disappointed that you've made such a mess with your missions that they have even been recorded with full evidence on the news. I'm disappointed that you've inserted yourself into my mission and complicated things."

Kitsune did his best to ignore the expressions of betrayal and disgust that he saw flash across the six heroes' faces.

"B-But!" Hebi pouted as she pointed back towards where Wasabi stood holding Pierce — both men visibly flinched. "I got answers out of him and everything already for you!"

"Did you now?" Kitsune questioned lightly, raising his head to follow her gesture. "I guess I can forgive you then."

"Hooray!" Hebi clapped her hands childishly as her expression brightened. "Alright, can we leave now then?"

"What makes you think that we're going to let you leave after all you've done?" Hiro muttered under his breath as he glared at the mask-wielding duo.

"Don't complicate things for yourself, Hiro." Kitsune replied. "I really hate complications."

Kitsune then reached into his pocket and pulled out a capsule-like object. He threw the object to the floor and a cloud of smoke erupted from its smashed remnants. The smoke cloud consumed the entire warehouse, leaving the five human heroes in a coughing mess. When the smoke cleared, the two animals were gone.


	5. Fifth Encounter: Hebi (蛇)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's a ssssnake!

It had only been several weeks since the warehouse hanging incident, but San Fransokyo seemed to have moved on already.

The night was dark but the streets were bright with life. In one of the more lifeless alleyways of San Franksokyo stood a young man and a young girl. If anyone was asked to explain what was going on between these two people with only a quick glance to go on, he or she would probably give an answer that was along the lines of 'the girl is obviously trying to drag the poor boy to the depths of hell'.

That was indeed what it looked like the girl was doing. The girl was wrapped around the man's left leg like a snake. The young man was trying to move forward, despite this fact, but was evidently making no progress at all with the deadweight.

"Kitsune," the girl whined as she tightened her grip on his leg, "I know that you're still mad at me!"

"Hebi, just let go of me." was the man's gruff and tired reply.

"Noo!" Hebi shouted. "Not until you convince me that you're not mad at me for scaring away your friends!"

"Your fear makes absolutely no sense, Hebi." Kitsune — having given up on trying to shake her off — said coolly as he looked down at her watering eyes. "For one, those children were not my friends. Secondly, I don't think I'm capable of anger at the level you're speaking of. Now, let me go."

She refused and shook her head fiercely.

"Is it safe to assume that your refusal means that you want me to slice your arms off with my sword." he deadpanned as he reached for the blade on his back.

"Huzzuh!" Hebi smiled as she released him from her cobra-like grip. "You're sounding like yourself again!"

"Don't bother me anymore unless you're dying." Kitsune glared as he removed his mask.

"But how can you ask me to not bother you when you have such a nice face?" Hebi questioned innocently; she paused and frowned crossly. "You're not going to go brood on a rooftop somewhere again, are you?"

He glared at her again and walked over to the dumpster that was lined up against the wall. He reached behind it and pulled out a duffel bag. From that duffel bag, he pulled out a black hoodie which he quickly slid on.

"You _are_ going to go brooding!" Hebi shouted, pointing an accusatory finger in his direction. "You have the emo hoodie and everything!" She paused again, narrowing her eyes. "You've been brooding a lot lately — ever since you met the big loser six!"

She scowled as he waved her off and exited the alley. It was evident that he hadn't even been listening to her.

Hebi didn't understand why in the world Kitsune was giving that group of six special treatment. The Kitsune she knew would have never agreed to work alongside a team — let alone aid them in some weird quasi-hero escapade. The Kitsune she knew wouldn't have even talked to the six of them!

She bit her lip and furrowed her eyebrows. Her gaze kept darkening and darkening, until a sudden idea crossed her mind.

The idea? She would figure out exactly why her Kitsune was so affected by the group of six!

The implementation of the idea? She would find and stalk them of course! Maybe beat some answers out of then if she could!

"You're a genius, Hebi!" she patted herself gleefully on the back. However, a sudden realization hit her and the gleefulness dissipated. "Wait, how the hell am I supposed to find them?"

* * *

Wasabi yawned and stretched as he flicked on the lights of the robotics laboratory. As usual, he was the first one belonging to the mentioned department to arrive at school. And as usual — or so he suspected — either Hiro or Gogo would be the last to arrive. Wasabi had actually been keeping tally of their lateness, and so far Gogo (ironically) had the most tally marks for tardiness.

He headed over towards where most of the machinery was placed and switched them. It took quite a while for the equipment to start up, so it had become practice for him to warm them up for the students who came in later. On his stroll towards the machinery, however, he nearly tripped over… a body?

"Fred," Wasabi sighed as he rubbed his eyes, "did you sleep here overnight again?"

Fred was sprawled out comfortably on the ground before him. Needless to say, Wasabi was impressed at how he had managed to make a make-shift bed out of a mere stack of notebooks.

"You don't understand, man," Fred grumbled as he rolled over in his 'bed', "this place has an amazing aura that charges up my mojo…" He began to nod off again.

"Hey," Wasabi nudged him gently with his foot, "you're gonna have a serious accident if you don't get up before the others start their work here. You'd better get up." He added in exasperation as he gestured around wildly: "Plus, look at this mess you made! You know I can't handle messes!"

"I'm zen though, Wasabi," Fred sighed contentedly, "zen!"

..."Your choice, boy." Wasabi sighed as he continued his stroll towards the machinery. He flicked the switches and turned all the knobs and watched as the machines sprung to life. The groaning noises emanating from their hard drives gave him life.

A sudden thumping sound emanating from the ceiling cut his reverie off short. He glanced up at the tiled ceiling and frowned.

"It was making those spooky thumpy sounds all night," Fred yawned as he sat up from his 'bed', having evidently decided to wake up. "I think there's a cat or something stuck in there or something."

"Huh," Wasabi nodded. "If it gets any worse, I'm probably going to have to call animal control or something."

There was another loud thump and a layer of dust rained down to the floor. The dust didn't remain the center of attention for long, however. The doors to the laboratory swung open and three figures entered the room. Two of these figures looked like they had been dragged out of hell and back, while the one other figure looked like she had gently alighted down from heaven.

"Good morning, Fred, Wasabi!" Honey greeted them cheerfully as she made her way over to her lab station.

"Morning!" Fred and Wasabi answered back in unison.

"Mornings are stupid." Hiro groaned as he stumbled into the laboratory and slumped into a nearby chair. "I mean, who invented mornings? Satan?"

"Even Satan would be more merciful than this." Gogo sighed as she slumped into the chair beside him.

"Well, you're looking very sunny this morning." Wasabi commented lightly. "Honey drag you guys out of bed?"

"Don't remind me…" Hiro groaned even louder.

"Where's Baymax?"

"I left him charging at home." Hiro answered, resting his eyes. "Saved him from the horror that is called waking up."

Wasabi suppressed a loud laugh. His choked down laugh was, however, overshadowed by another loud thumping sound above their heads.

"What the hell is that?" Gogo raised an eyebrow.

"It's probs a cat or something," Fred explained, glancing upwards. "Poor dude is trapped."

"Aw," Honey Lemon murmured as she glanced upwards, "we need to get the poor thing out of there!"

The thump resounded again, this time much louder than before.

"... that must be a very big cat then." Hiro blinked, straightening himself up to look at ceiling. He then added a bit more sarcastically: "Heads up, guys. A pet lion might just land on our laps in a couple of minutes."

The thumping echoed once more and was followed by another layer of dust… and a cracking noise. A crack had literally appeared on one of the ceiling's tiles. The crack grew and grew, until it collapsed on itself, and the tile gave way.

A humanoid form hit the ground, accompanied by small pieces of plaster and a long, iron rope. Once the debris settled, it became evident that the humanoid form had entangled itself in the rope that had fallen down with it. Closer inspection revealed that the humanoid form was someone that the five students were acquainted with.

"It's the mask girl!" Wasabi gasped, taking a step backwards.

"How the hell did she get there?!" Gogo shouted, coming to a stand. Hiro followed suit and approached the girl's fallen form.

"Shit, man," Fred gapped. "We probably should call animal control then, huh?"

"No!" came the girl's shout, as she struggled in her self-induced bindings. "I come in peace, you losers, I come in peace!"

All five adolescents stared at the squirming girl and began to wonder if she really was the one who had strangled all those people in the warehouse. Gogo began to approach the struggling girl from behind — she had her mind set on apprehending the snake. Unfortunately, just as Gogo was upon her, the girl burst from her bindings and swiftly recollected her metal wire in her palm.

"Now, listen up!" the girl shouted hotly with a flustered expression as she pointed her finger wildly in their directions. "I have some serious questions for you!" She paused and a confused expression crossed her face: "You guys _are_ the big loser six, right?"

"How did you find us?!" Gogo shouted, tensing.

"Wow!" the girl continued as she studied their faces closely. "You guys are all pretty attractive, y'know that? You should stop wearing those cliche masks! Maybe then I'll stop calling you the big loser six."

"You're… Hebi, right?" Hiro questioned in a dissonant tone. It was evident that his mind was racing.

"Correct!" she applauded him as she approached him and studied him carefully. "Wow, you're a total cutie! You look a lot like Kitsune too... Huh. Well, bingo for me!"

The other four started towards Hiro protectively and edged around the girl. Hiro, on the other, blushed profusely.

"Relax!" she cackled, observing their tenseness. "I'm not gonna kill you or attack you or anything — well, that is, as long as you decide to stay on the side of the law and justice… or something cliche like that!"

"And tell us why we shouldn't just take you down right now and throw your butt in jail?" Gogo asked darkly.

"What?" Hebi gapped innocently, twirling the metal wire in her hands. "Why would you throw me in jail? I haven't done anything wrong!"

"You _killed_ the people in the warehouse!" Gogo shot back.

"What?" Hebi scoffed. "That again? I told you — those guys were the worst of the worst! I was just keeping the city clean!"

"They were _people_." Hiro said calmly.

Hebi's bright nature dimmed suddenly, and she gazed at Hiro with lowered eyes. Hiro realized that there was something off in that look of hers. He had felt the same "off" thing when he had made eye-contact with Kitsune. Something was broken.

"Guys!" came a shout. "Watch out!"

Everyone — save for Hebi who simply looked around in confusion — ducked backwards. This uniform ducking motion was followed by an explosion of pink that erupted in the air. When the smoke cleared, Hebi found herself bound to the floor by a pink substance, while the others found themselves smirking at her struggling form.

"You must not be that bright if you think that you can just waltz into a science laboratory with little experience and not get hurt." Hiro grinned, shoving his hands into his pockets as he approached her. "Now, Hebi, you're going to answer _our_ questions."

"Sweet!" Fred whispered under his breath. "Our first villain interrogation!"

* * *

While that debacle was occurring at San Fransokyo University, Cass Hamada was busily working away in her coffee shop. It was rush hour, and she was having trouble keeping track of her orders and customers despite the help she was receiving from her newly hired workers.

"Ugh, wait, Stacy," Cass sighed as she nodded towards the said blonde waitress, "was order five-hundred, fifty a cappuccino or a mocha?"

"It was a mocha, Miss Hamada !" Stacy replied in a sing song voice as she scribbled the order of the customer she was talking too down.

"Thanks, hun." Cass thanked her. She quickly, but carefully whipped the beverage together and headed towards the designated table located at the far corner of the shop.

It was quite the daunting task — navigating through the crowded room. At that very moment, she decided that she would have to expand her cafe shop. Sure, it would be costly, but it would be worth it in the end. It would be worth not having to do an olympic trek just to deliver an order on a crowded day.

Cass was so caught up in her fantasy cafe shop that she walked right into one of her customers. The mocha coffee mug slid right off of the plaster plate it was riding on and splattered its contents onto the said customer's black hoodie.

"Oh, gosh!" Cass gasped as she awkwardly reached over to the table beside her to grab a napkin. "I am just so clumsy today, I—

Her words caught in the back of her throat as she glanced up and registered his face. Her customer stared back down at her with dark eyes that were underlined with bags.

"Ta—

"It's fine." he answered gruffly, shoving past her and heading towards the exit.

"T-Ta...dashi?" Cass finished, turning just in time to see the customer disappear out of the front door.

Her eyes began to water and her hands began to shake uncontrollably. The plaster plate slid from her grip like it was slippery ice. It fell to the floor and shattered to pieces just as she exited the shop and ranout onto the street.

The buzz of traffic and the chattering of crowds was disorienting for her at first, but she pushed past it and searched the sidewalk frantically. A flash of black appeared from the corner of her eye, and she turned her head.

There he was weaving his way in and out of the crowd. There. He. Was.

"Tadashi!" she cried as she dived into the crowd after him. "Tadashi!"

The noise of the pushing and shoving crowd must have drowned out her cries because he didn't turn to acknowledge her. It didn't matter. He was only a breadth hair away from her reach. Her fingers brushed against his back, and he turned.

Cass's heart slammed back and forth wildly in her rib cage.

He looked exactly like how she remembered him, albeit older and…and... The upper left half of his face was eaten away by stretched, pink skin. Burn marks. But something other than that jarred the memory she had of him. It was his eyes and the expression on his face. Cold, annoyed, apathetic.

He looked like her Tadashi; but, at the same time, he didn't resemble him at all. For that reason, she was taken aback and frozen in place.

"Ta…" her voice died.

"I said that it was fine." He snapped, glowering at her. With that he turned, shoving his hands into his pockets, and disappeared into the sea of the crowd.

Cass didn't quite know how long she stood there on the sidewalk, but the sun was touching down on the horizon when her employees rushed outside to find her.

" _I'll_ be the one asking you the questions!" Hebi retorted immediately — which, all in all, was quite humorous, looking at her position.

"Geez, you're feisty." Hiro grimaced. "How old are you anyways?"

Hebi quit her useless struggling and glanced up at Hiro as if he had just asked the most impossible question in the world.

"How old are _you_?" she shot back, her cheeks growing red. "You look like a toddler! Are you sure you should be going out in the field without any parental guidance?"

"Says the chubby-faced infant." Hiro snarkily retorted. "Don't struggle too much — you might soil your diapers."

"Ohhh!" Fred whooped from the side. "Buuuurn!"

" _Seriously_?" Gogo rolled her eyes. "Seriously."

"It's okay, dudes," Fred announced loudly, as he threw his hands up into the air. "I've seen so many police procedural dramas that questioning criminals is practically ingrained in my soul!"

Everyone watched as he ran to the corner of the room, picked up the silver lamp that was resting there, and carried it over to where Hebi stood entrapped. He flicked the lamp on and pointed its bulb directly at her face which caused her to wince and scowl.

"Get that shit out of my face," she threatened, "or I will end you!"

"Alright," Fred cracked his knuckles, as he shoved the lamp further into her face, "where were you when the crime was taking place?"

"What?" she gaped, before she turned to glare at Hiro. "Get him out of here."

"I'm joking! I'm joking, dudette." Fred laughed as he hit the lamp heftily.

"What." she gaped again. She then shook her head fiercely and glared at no one in particular. "If you don't let me go right this instant, Kitsune and the others are going to gut you!"

"So, you _are_ working with Kitsune." Hiro frowned. "What are you guys trying to accomplish?"

"That's not of your business, brat." she answered, lifting her head. "But," she lowered her head and glanced slyly to the side, "if you answer my questions, I'll maybe or maybe not answer some of your questions."

"There's no way—" Gogo began, before she was cut off by Hiro's affirmative answer. She began to protest but choked on her words when the girl asked her question—

"What are you guys planning to do to my Kitsune?"

"Uh, nothing? Apprehend him, I guess, if he takes things too far." Hiro replied quickly, before he proposed another question for her: "You said you're working with others. Who's your leader?"

"We don't have a leader." Hebi scoffed at the idea. "We're like a badass wolf pack of badassery, kind of like the Assassins from Assassin's Creed." She paused, her expression becoming thoughtful: "Well, I guess you could say Kitsune directs us sometimes, though that really depends on what mood everybody is in."

"Alright…"

"My turn." she grinned. "How did you guys meet Kitsune?"

"At the bank robbery five weeks ago." Wasabi provided.

"What's your goal?"

"To clear San Fransokyo's streets of trash." she snapped immediately as if the answer had been ingrained in her since birth. "Among other things…"

Her answer provoked a variety of reactions, ranging from disgust to sympathy.

"My turn," she grinned, "how are you and Kitsune related?"

"We have no relation." Hiro answered quickly, before he shot her with another question. "How did you and your 'pack of wolves' get together exactly? Was an invitation sent or something? 'Cause I obviously didn't receive it."

This time, Hebi didn't snap to answer the question. She mulled over her response, her eyes darting from left to right as she attempted to put her answer into words.

"Kitsune, the others, and I…" she drew slowly and slumping slightly. "... we were basically all in the same situation, kind of like a Battle Royale thing but not really. And in that situation we were all kind of forced together. It was really kind of fucked up, honestly."

"Wow, that was vaguer than vague." Gogo grimaced.

"But because of that situation," Hebi continued, despite the fact that they had not asked her to explain any further, "I became more of a badass and I met my Kitsune, so it wasn't too bad."

"Do you know where Kitsune and your other teammates are?" Hiro asked.

"Kitsune is probably brooding on a rooftop somewhere..." she smirked at the thought, before pausing to frown. "Hey, it's my turn to ask a question!"

"Shoot." Hiro shrugged.

"Why is Kitsune so interested in you guys?" She frowned, a look of jealousy crossing her face. "I mean, you aren't anything special or anything like that, are you?"

"Kitsune is interested in us?" Honey Lemon frowned. "But why?"

"That's what I'm asking you." Hebi spat back with a scowl. "It's not fair that I'm answering your questions fully, but you're not even answering any of mine!"

"Well," Hiro shrugged nonchalantly, "I guess that's all that we can get out of her, huh, Gogo?"

"I guess so," Gogo smirked from beside him. "We should turn her in to the cops then, huh?"

"Wait! Time out!" Hebi quivered at their taunts. "This isn't fair! I quit!"

Suddenly and abruptly, cracks began to appear on the pink cement that had formed around the encased girl. The cracks grew and grew until the pink encasement shattered into pieces, and pieces of the cement fell to the floor uselessly.

"Wha — how?!" Gogo gapped.

Realization dawned upon Honey Lemon. The girl must have been using the same time of physically-enhancing drugs Kitsune had been using. The thought made Honey sick to her stomach.

"I'm outta this dump!" Hebi cackled as she threw her metal wire up towards the ceiling where it latched onto a facet formed by the cracked ceiling tile.

Wasabi, Fred, and Gogo made a dive for her, but alas. With a tug of her wire, she shot up into the air and disappeared into the opening in the ceiling. Several loud thumps resounded after this event which was followed by a plethora of "ow"s. The sounds soon faded away and died out, leaving the five adolescents to stare at the gaping hole in the ceiling.

"Did that really just happen?"

Needless to say, it was quite the hassle to try and explain why there was a hole in the ceiling to the head of the Robotics department.

* * *

Hiro yawned tiredly as he entered his home slash cafe. The shop was closed by then and the employees had just finished cleaning up. As they exited the building, they told Hiro that his robot and his aunt were spending… quality bonding time together?

Hiro didn't quite understand. Maybe that was why he stood frozen in place and gaping for several minutes when he walked into his dining room and found Baymax and his aunt embracing each other.

"Uh," Hiro coughed, "am I missing something here?"

"Oh, hey, Hiro!" his aunt greeted him warmly, freeing one of her hands to wave at him. "Welcome home!"

"I repeat." Hiro raised an eyebrow as he tossed his bookbag on the floor. "Am I missing something here?"

"Your aunt was emotionally distressed." Baymax explained as he patted said aunt softly on the back. "A hug is the best remedy for emotional distress."

"Emotional distress?" Hiro frowned, glancing worriedly at his aunt. "Aunt Cass, what's wrong? What happened?"

"Oh, nothing!" Cass answered with a quick laugh. "Work is just really stressful lately! It's okay though — that's what stress eating is for!"

"Right…" Hiro nodded slowly, edging his way ever so slowly towards the staircase. "Well, can you send Baymax upstairs after you're done with your...er… hugging?"

"Sure, honey!" his aunt nodded nonchalantly, before she wiggled her head into Baymax's fluffy stomach. "My god, he's so squishy!"

"Well, yeah," Hiro rolled his eyes as he ascended the stairs, "he was designed to be."

Once Hiro was out of sight, Cass's bright expression dropped and she stared blankly at the floor. She had seen a ghost that day; and the very sight of the ghost had poked at a wound that had not even completely healed yet. Her chest felt heavy — so heavy that she felt like she was drowning.

Baymax hugged her even tighter.

* * *

Hiro opened the door to his room with a well-aimed kick. Light filtered into it immediately, filling up its dark emptiness. Shadows formed along the walls and stretched all the way to the window across the room.

The window as ajar, so he moved to close it. After he clasped it shut, he collapsed onto his bed with a heavy sigh. The sigh was eaten up by the silence that permeated throughout the room. He had never quite gotten used to the silence. He didn't think that he ever would.

His chest ached suddenly, so he rolled onto his stomach and let out another sigh. He wished Baymax would hurry up and come to his room—

"Wow, you sure have a nice room!"

Hiro screamed bloody murder and leapt from his bed, collapsing onto the floor in a heap. Sitting cross-legged next to where his head had just been at was none other than Hebi who was looking around in wonder.

"Wha?" Hiro stuttered uncomprehendingly. "H-How?!"

"I stalked you and climbed through the window, of course!" Hebi replied as she swung her legs off of the bed and came to a stand. "You're aunt down there seems really nice!"

Hiro's eye widened and he clenched his fists: "You better not—

"Don't worry!" Hebi waved him off. "Your aunt is way too nice for me to even remotely think of killing her. I have a strict criminals-only appetite, didn't you know?" She smiled a thin, snake-like smile at him.

"So," Hiro glowered at her, coming to a stand, "you do have morals."

"What are mora—

"What do you want?" Hiro hissed at her, glancing backwards at the doorway.

"You never answered my question back at the university!"

Hiro still didn't know how she had managed to find her way _there_ in the first place.

"Look," he grimaced, "I don't know anything about your Kitsune friend, alright?"

"Why is that part of your room blocked off for?" she asked, ignoring his statement and pointing towards the drawn shoji sliding doors.

"That's none of your business." Hiro stated coldly.

"What does this hat say?" she continued, holding up a navy baseball hat that she had swiped from his desk.

Hiro's eyes widened at the sight. He rushed at her, ripping the hat away from her grasp and holding it close to his chest. He glared at her darkly, causing her to flinch back.

"Jeez…" she muttered under her breath. "I was just asking. Typical moody, teenage boy."

...

Hebi really didn't understand why the boy was getting so flustered for. She hadn't attacked him or anything — not physically at least. In the end, she decided that his moodiness was the cause of his raging teenage hormones.

All she wanted to know was why Kitsune was so interested in him and his group. It wasn't like she had asked him anything personal or anything.

"Leave." he told her icily.

"Not until you answer my question!" Hebi shouted back hotly.

With that she stormed over to his table and began to look over his things. The boy immediately charged at her and began slapping her arm angrily in attempt to stop her from invading his privacy. She pushed him back and struggled for her right to invade, knocking over several objects that were laying on the desk in the process.

"Hey!" he shouted in protest.

Ignoring his hits and swipes, she bent down to pick up what had fallen.

It was a picture encased in a wooden frame. She held it in the light and observed the faces she saw there. The smiles of six people were captured in the photograph. The boy who was still currently hitting her was among the smiling faces. And…

...

Hebi gripped the picture frame tightly in her palms. She was gripping it so hard that Hiro thought that its glass covering would shatter if she applied any more pressure.

"Who is this guy in the picture?" she asked quietly, her voice coming out as a hiss; she pointed to a one of the smiling faces in the picture. "Who is it?"

Hiro stared at the picture with a frown, before his eyes softened and burned. He didn't know why, but he decided to answer her question:

"That's my brother: Tadashi…"

Hebi whipped her head around and approached Hiro rapidly, causing him to nearly fall back onto his bed in surprise.

"What?" He questioned stonily, blinking away the tears that had formed in his eyes. "What is it?"

Her eyes were flashing with a wide arrange of emotions — so many that Hiro couldn't even begin to count them all. She glowered over him and gritted her teeth.

"Stay away from Kitsune." she stated simply after a long pause of silence. "Don't ever go near him again."

With that she darted over to the window, pulled it open, and disappeared into the cold night.

* * *

Hebi had found her answer, the answer she had spent weeks searching for. She finally knew why her Kitsune was so affected by the six heroes. She finally knew why he acted so strangely whenever he was near them.

She ran along the low-hanging rooftops of San Fransokyo and nearly fell to her death thrice. She was unable to run in a straight line — her mind was being battered to death by her recent discovery.

"They're his _family._ " she finally whispered under her breath, coming to a stop. The realization slapped her cold in the face.

She had to find him. She had to. She sprinted her way towards Kitsune's favorite "brooding building", not even stopping to catch her breath. Only when she reached the tallest and darkest building did she stop to bend over and pant her lungs out.

"What's up, Hebi?" came a deep voice.

Hebi glanced upwards, wiping the beads of sweat that had formed on her brow, and scowled as she registered none other than Usagi standing before her.

"I want to talk to Kitsune!" she growled, before she shook her head. "Why are you always hanging around Kitsune for anyways? Are you his boyfriend or something?"

"Kitsune isn't here." Usagi shrugged his large shoulders, stepping to the side to block the figure who was sitting at the edge of the building from her view.

"You're a terrible liar." Hebi scowled, squinting past him. She straightened herself, fixed her hair, and pushed him back lightly. "I need to have a deep and personal conversation with Kitsune if you'd excuse us."

Usagi shrugged, muttering something about Kitsune's brooding time, and left the two for themselves.

Hebi immediately hopped over to where Kitsune was sitting at the very edge of the rooftop. She plopped herself down beside him and gazed him intently. He wasn't wearing his mask.

"What is it, Hebi?"

Good, he wasn't in one of his brooding moods.

"Kitsune…" she drew slowly and carefully. "We're all a family, right…? You, me, Usagi, Neko, Sasori, Tako, and the others…"

"We're acquaintances." he answered. "We benefit each other, so we stick with each other. It's a means of survival... I would be lying if I said that you weren't the only one with a mindset like _that_."

Hebi pouted at the answer, but continued on anyways.

"Would you stick with us even if you found your… biological family?" she questioned, crossing and uncrossing her legs. "I mean… would you stick with us if you found out about your life before all of this?"

Kitsune turned to look at her with an unreadable expression. She blinked back at him expectantly, her heart hammering wildly in her chest.

"There would be no reason for me to go back." he finally answered, staring directly into her eyes. "The me now and the me then are two different people. Unless it would benefit me somehow, I would definitely not go back… Now stop asking stupid questions."

Hebi stared at him for a moment, before she pounced on him and pulled him into an awkward hug. She squeezed him tightly despite his evident discomfort.

"Never change, Kitsune, never change."

"If you don't let go of me now, I'll throw you off of this building. And I won't even come to your funeral."

Knowing that his threat could prove to be true, she released him; but not before he reached over to gently pat her head. The action surprised her and she glanced up at him. She wasn't sure if he was even conscious of the fact that he was making such a gesture — his gaze was far off.

Her heart felt warm and pained at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I've got your attention, [ part 1 ](https://sixchances.com/part-1-the-synchronized-six/) of my web serial novel has finished and I'd appreciate it if you'd give it a gander! Also available [ here ](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/28808/the-synchronized-six-six-chances) on royal road.  
> Quick blurb:  
> "What would you do if your life, memories, and feelings were suddenly tied to another person?  
> Six people. One life.  
> A spoiled prince haunted by a ghost. A big city swindler with a knack for illusions. A cold soldier with a sharp eye. A pirate with a few screws loose. A chieftain’s bookish daughter with carefully bandaged hands. A peacekeeping agent with an eye for vengeance.  
> After simultaneously knocking on death’s door, these six find themselves psychically connected across national lines. Tensions rise between them and between their respective countries, which are recovering from a long war over the mysterious vitae—an energy source harvested and utilized in weapons and engines called conductors. Loyalty, memory, and sense of self blur as conspiracies encroach.  
> Assassination attempts, a border conflict, a missing peacekeeping agent, a bar shootout, a tale of a bloodthirsty beast, and the terrorist organization ELPIS.  
> —Everything is connected. Nothing is coincidental. The spark has ignited…!"


	6. Sixth Encounter: Tengoku (天国), Ichii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one likes roller coaster--not heroes, not anti-heroes, not villains. Everyone just pretends they do.

_He was walking._

_No, he was running._

_It hurt to run, but he was doing it anyways. Someone was in danger and he had to save that someone. To save that someone, he needed to run._

_The once white-washed walls around him were smeared with some grotesque color._

_Please be safe. Please be safe. Please be safe — such thoughts ran through his head. Each thought made his heart pound faster and faster. He was afraid his heart would burst then and there. But… even if it did, he would continue running. He had to._

_His shoes squeaked noisily on the slippery floors of the hall, but it was otherwise quiet. This quietness brought an insurmountable dread to his stomach._

_There. A corner._

_He rounded it and entered a dark room._

_He flicked the light switch on._

_The room was red._

_Smoke was filtering into the room from some invisible gap in the wall. It's tendrils swirled around greedily, filling up all the spaces that it could._

_He felt like he was choking._

_Someone was standing at the very center of all this red and smoke. It was a girl no older than fourteen. It was a girl whose neck was dyed with a red that was slowly dribbling down the rest of her body. She was holding that red-flowing wound on her neck as she stared at him intently._

_He felt like he was choking so much that he couldn't breathe._

" _Why?"_

_He realized that he was holding a glass shard that was also dyed red at its tip. If he slid the glass shard into the slit at the side of her throat, it would fit perfectly. His eyes widened in horror at this realization, and he dropped the shard. It shattered noiselessly on the ground._

_He rushed to the bleeding girl's side as she collapsed onto the ground. Her body went into spasms, so he pulled her into a tight and loving cradle in an attempt to calm her shakes. He applied pressure to her wound, but it was to no avail. The blood wouldn't stop flowing._

" _Fight and survive." she whispered to him._

_And then her face morphed. Her hair became darker, and her face became more angled._

_He was now staring at the helpless face of a young boy who was begging him for something with his eyes._

" _Nii-san…"_

_No. Not Hiro. Please not Hiro. Hiro was his one and only—-_

* * *

Kitsune shot up immediately. He was drenched from head to toe in sweat. He panted heavily, his eyes rapidly darting this way and that in an attempt to identify the disorienting mess that surrounded him. Only when he realized that he was sitting on top of the roof of a tall building and not in a pool of blood did he steady his breath.

He cradled his head with his right hand and pulled his leg towards his chest. Rubbing his temple, he glanced up at the horizon where the sun was just beginning to rise. The sky around it was dyed an orange-red by the rising yellow disk.

He grimaced and realized that it wasn't just his head that was hurting. His hand drifted towards his chest, and he grasped it tightly.

"What the hell." he muttered under his breath. Why had that purple-suited boy invaded his dreams?

"Cat got your tongue, Kit?" came a seductive and accented drawl from behind.

Kitsune didn't need to turn to know who it was that was bothering him. He could already picture the tight bodysuit that was loosely covered up with an open, yellow kimono; and he could picture the smirking mouth below a cat-like mask.

"That phrase doesn't make sense in this context, Neko (*)."

"Geeze," came a click of the tongue, "always so nasty. Cat got your manners or somethin'?"

"Stop."

"Yeesh, doll." Neko sighed, feigned hurt evident in her voice. "I was just coming to tell ya' that techy, rich guy is in custody."

"Alistair Krei."

"Sure." Neko nodded half-heartedly. " _That_ guy…" There was a pause of silence, before she continued, "Do ya still wanna do the double-session thing with him and the crazy scientist guy?"

"Robert Callaghan. And yes I do."

"Sure." she sighed, brushing a strand of red hair to the side. "And how long is it goin' ta take you ta get crazy scientist guy? You don't even know where they're keepin' him locked up. Everyone else is growin' impatient."

"Does it look like I even remotely care." he deadpanned, turning to give her a pointed look. "I'm working on it."

"Kit, do ya' even have a plan?" Neko asked, examining her nails.

"I _am_ the one pulling the strings."

There was silence.

"Right." she smiled coyly, lowering her hand. "... by the way, I was wondering if you were goin' to handle the whole package issue with that amusement park. Y'know, the one that Pierce told Hebi about. If not, I'm going to do it myself, since I've got nothin' on my hands now — not even one damn odd job."

"No." Kitsune muttered, coming to a stand and turning to face her. "I'll handle this one. Killing two birds with one stone."

She could practically see him smirking beneath his mask. She hated when he did that.

"You'll never catch a cat if ya' keep smirking creepily to yourself like that."

"... I'm leaving."

Hiro Hamada stared at his laptop screen intently as he swirled around in the Robotic's building's most comfortable office chair. He clicked his tongue in annoyance and ruffled his hair as he continued to scroll down the website he was looking at. Something wasn't adding up.

A shadow crossed over his head, and his chair was leaned backwards and pushed forwards. Glancing up, Hiro found himself staring into Fred's relaxed gaze.

"Sup, little man." Fred greeted with a small salute. "You look like you're stressin'. You should ask Baymax to give you a massage or something, 'cause the guy gives the best massages ever."

"It's about the kabuki-masked people." Hiro informed him, as he turned his laptop around to show Fred the site he had been viewing. "Well, it's actually about the things that the masked people have been involved with."

"Oh, so you're doing extreme detective work then, huh? Cool." Fred questioned with raised eyebrows; he squinted at the screen. "So what is this about CASCO?"

"I think that the masked people are targeting CASCO for some reason." Hiro informed, as he turned his laptop around so he could continue scrolling. "I mean, if you look at the evidence it makes perfect sense. Edward Yamamoto, the CEO of CASCO, has gone missing… the ex-secretary of Kenji Brian who sponsors CASCO was targeted… and early today… Allistair Krei who had former business connections with CASCO was reported missing since Monday."

"Krei?! Dude, seriously?" Fred asked with raised eyebrows. "Man, we need help find him or something."

"But the main thing here is that CASCO is at the center of all this." Hiro frowned. "And then I got this tip off online about CASCO's relations with San Fransokyo's number one amusement park. Do you remember what Pierce said when we were taking him to the police? He kept talking about a 'package' that was being sent to San Fransokyo World."

"Okay, Hiro, San Fransokyo World is a rad amusement park and everything," Fred laughed lightly, "but I think we should really be focusing on catching these masked dudes if they keep hurting anymore people. And that's saying something 'cause I'm usually chill with everyone."

"That's not the point." Hiro brushed him off, turning his laptop to show Fred an article on the CASCO website. "Look here. CASCO recently bought the rights to the park!"

"Are you talkin' conspiracy?" Fred questioned, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows amicably. "'Cause I think you're talking conspiracy."

"... Unbelievable!" Hiro shouted exasperatedly, before he scowled intensely. "This is serious, Fred!"

"Has anyone told you that you're scary when you're obsessed with something?" Fred continued as he watched Hiro's expression darken. "'Cause you are freakin' scary when you're obsessed with something."

"Let's go tell the others!" Hiro shouted, ignoring his comment, grabbing his arm, and dragging him all the way to the laboratory room where said others were.

* * *

The group of six, all dressed in loose summer clothing, stood at the gates of San Fransokyo's greatest amusement park. The gates of it rose up way above their heads; and they could see its design perfectly, despite the fact that they were drowning in the middle of a large crowd. Above these gilded gates were words 'San Fransokyo World' which flashed with neon colors. Roller coasters and ferris wheels peaked up from just behind the gates, and screams of joy and surprise could be heard loud and clear.

"Sweet." Gogo commented, blowing a bubble.

"Did I ever mention how I can't stomach rollercoaster rides?" Wasabi questioned lightly.

"Who says we're going to ride on the rollercoasters? We're here to investigate." Hiro replied, contradicting the sparkle of excitement in his eyes.

"Oh, come on, Hiro!" Honey waved him off as she looped her arm around his. "We need to have a little fun once in a while!"

"Relaxing and engaging in outdoor activities are proven to improve one's mental health." Baymax added helpfully from the side.

"Party time!" Fred shouted at the top of his lungs, whipping out six amusement park tickets from his pocket and punching his fist into the air. "Booh yeah!"

With that, they made a beeline for the entrance booth.

* * *

Kitsune grunted as he made his landing. His ankle throbbed in pain, but he shook it off and observed his surroundings.

Behind him rose the protective walls of San Fransokyo World that were apparently meant to keep non-paying customers out. The walls had obviously failed at their job, seeing how he was now inside the amusement park without having paid a penny.

The amusement park in all its glory unfolded in the opposite direction. Roller coasters dappled in reds and blues and greens swirled along the skyline; and music and chatter filled the air. Children, adolescents, and adults walked along the dusty ground with either balloons or bags of food in their hands. They pointed excitedly to new attractions and food stations and laughed loudly amongst themselves.

Like always, Kitsune felt strangely disconnected from it all.

He brushed himself off and unstrapped his katana from his back. He quickly stashed the weapon away behind a large, metal disposal bin. He couldn't very well have security bothering him. It would just create more complications.

After that ordeal was done with, he stepped out from where he landed between two food stalls and merged with the strolling crowds of people. His eyes scanned the said crowd with scrutiny.

He was searching for the final variable that would help him effectively 'kill two birds with one stone'. He hoped that he had made his calculations correctly; because if he failed at this mission, he would be Neko's scratching pole for a whole month.

He suddenly shivered. Had he really just made a cat joke? Had he really just…? He shook his head and realized that he hadn't taken his injection of physical enhancements yet. Perhaps that was why he was so jumpy.

He prepared to slink back into the shadows and take the drugs when his needed variable suddenly appeared right before his eyes.

There the group of six heroes stood in all their glory — playing a fishing game. At first glance, it looked as if they were suffering from a losing streak. With closer inspection, however, it was evident that they — namely the one named Hiro who was smirking innocently (?) — were conning the booth runner right out of his prizes.

...

"That's enough!" the thick-mustached booth-runner shouted loudly as he slammed his fist down onto the countertop. "You brat! You're cheating!"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Hiro blinked innocently up at the booth-runner. "It was just a streak of luck… I can try again if you want! I'm sure I won't be so lucky next time..."

"Remind me to take you with me whenever I hit the casino." Fred whispered loudly beside him.

The comment made the booth-runner's already red face become even redder.

"Leave!" he shouted. "Now!"

"Okay, okay!" Hiro waved his hands up in the air with a 'defeated' sigh. "Fine, we'll leave!"

Hiro swallowed a snicker and allowed Wasabi and Honey to drag him away from the booth. Gogo was snickering quietly beside him, while Fred rambled on about how Hiro would make it big at a casino. Baymax, on the other, was quietly mumbling to himself about whether or not playing a fishing game would actually help him become a better health care companion.

"Hiro," Honey sighed as she guided him to a wooden bench that rested beneath a decorative tree, "you can't go around causing trouble like that. Right, Gogo?"

Gogo shrugged, calming her laughter.

"Yeah, Hiro," Wasabi frowned, "we could've been detained by the park cops."

"I don't see the problem with it." Hiro shrugged them off. "I mean, that booth guy _was_ the one who started it. And there's no law against out-conning someone who is trying to con you."

"And you said that I was the one without morales."

The group of six, unsure of where the comment had come from, gazed at each other confusedly for a moment. Then, the speaker revealed himself — he had been leaning unnoticed behind the decorative tree. The five human members of the group straightened themselves, tensed, and started backwards with the revelation.

"Kitsune…" Gogo spat with narrowed eyes.

It was strange to see the masked man without his hefty katana strapped to his back. It almost looked as if a weight had been taken off of his shoulders. It was also strange for them to see him wearing a black long coat over his usual white Chinese shirt — one, because it made him looked sleeker; and two, because it was way too hot outside to be wearing such a thing.

"Yellow-suit girl." he acknowledged back, sliding his hands into his coat pockets.

"So you _are_ after CASCO… and the 'package'." Hiro frowned, before he smiled triumphantly. "I was right!"

"Of course you were right." Kitsune replied, glancing sideways to watch as child holding colorful balloons passed by his side. "I _was_ the one who told you about it."

Hiro and Fred quickly recalled the anonymous message Hiro had received that tipped them off about where CASCO was dabbling its funds in.

"Why… would you do that?" Hiro frowned again after a tense silence.

"I need your assistance." Kitsune answered slowly, turning to look at them again. "I need your assistance with destroying the package."

"And why would we help you?" Gogo scoffed, before she added sarcastically: "Like working together last time ended up so well."

"Don't you want to know what's in the package and why we're after CASCO?" Kitsune asked them back. He was strangely no longer using his monotone cadence. "I would normally do this on my own, but there are too many complications this time. My acquaintances are also caught up in their own things…"

Hiro mulled over the man's proposition. It was plain as day that the man had something else up his sleeve, but...

"Hiro," Wasabi frowned from beside him, "you can't seriously be thinking about—"

"I'm in." Hiro nodded, before he looked back at the others who were frowning at him. "I need to know this. I just need to." He paused, before he turned away and added: "You guys don't have to help if you don't want too. Baymax and I'll—

A hand touched his shoulder, cutting him off short. He turned and found himself blinking up at Wasabi's towering yet protective form.

"Dude," Wasabi frowned, "I think that your idea is a bad one, but I never said that I wouldn't be joining you on the downhill spiral." He smiled.

"That's right, Hiro," Honey smiled brightly as she bent over to meet his eyes, "we've got to stick together."

"We're like magnets." Gogo added sarcastically, betraying the fact that her lips were turned upwards.

"Wow, guys," Fred whispered in a booming voice from the side, "I think this is our second team pep chat! High five!" He raised his hands high up in the air and received a six-way high-five.

"Thanks, guys," Hiro began, before he was promptly cut off by Kitsune's snide tone—

"If you're done playing, I'll tell you where the package is going to be brought."

They turned to look at him with mixed expressions.

"The package is going to be brought backstage to the administrative department building of the park," he explained, un-pocketing his hands and crossing his arms. "There's heavy security, so I suggest you 'equip your gear'."

"So you're telling us you want us to take out security for you." Hiro concluded, eyebrows raised.

"I thought that was obvious."

Hiro studied Kitsune carefully, before his eyes caught onto a flash a blue and yellow that fluttered behind the man. Studying this flash for a moment, Hiro found a smile spreading across his face. He crossed his own arms and nodded to the fluttering flash of blue and yellow behind the man. When the others next to him saw the fluttering, they smiled as well.

"If you want our help," Hiro said steadily, "you're going to have to do it our way."

Kitsune turned his head.

Behind him fluttered a blue banner with yellow printed words. These words read 'Get a Free VIP Look at What Goes Behind San Fransokyo World! You will be able to Enjoy a Free Tour of the Administrative Offices of the Park if You Ride at least 5 Rides and Win 5 Games. 10 Winners Only.'

"I'd rather slit my own throat." was Kitsune's only comment.

* * *

They steadily climbed upwards with the clank of metal against metal ringing in their ears. The rays of the sun lashed out against their skin as they drew closer and closer towards it. And then they stopped their ascent. A cool airy breeze that could only be felt at the top of it brushed up against them, and the landscape below them became a blur of colors.

Then, the rollercoaster plummeted downwards.

Hiro, Gogo, Fred, and Honey Lemon threw up their arms and let out excited screams as wind whipped madly at their faces. Wasabi who sat alongside Fred was visibly sobbing in the two-seat compartment.

Hiro turned his head to look at his own compartment buddy. Said buddy was gripping the hand-bar tightly with one hand and his mask with the other. The awkward pose looked familiar for some strange reason.

The roller coaster finished its descent and came to glide along a line of tracks that were parallel to the ground. It slowed to a stop, and the sound of several metallic mechanisms clicking into place resounded in the air.

"You may now exit your compartments," came a mechanical voice. "If you are having difficulties exiting please wait in your seat for assistance."

Wasabi stumbled out of his compartment with Fred chuckling lightly behind him and patting him hard on the back. Gogo and Honey Lemon exited the compartment behind them, the former smiling contentedly and the latter throwing her hands up in the air and letting out an exhilarated scream. Hiro joined their sides with a whooping laugh, only later realizing that Kitsune hadn't joined them.

The fox-masked man was standing over by the guard railing. He was bent over and leaning against the rails for support. He was panting heavily and obviously trying to prevent his food from climbing up his throat.

Baymax, who had not been allowed on the coaster for safety reasons, moved away from the observatory bench he had been sitting on behind the railings and towards Kitsune slowly.

"My scanners indicate that the physiologically and biologically altering medication you have been taking has begun to clear from your bloodstream. You may soon experience withdrawal symptoms, if you have been taking the medication regularly or more than three times a day." came Baymax's winded diagnosis. "Would you like me to provide you with some—

"Seriously?" Gogo cut in with an unimpressed look as she slid into the scene. "Woman up. Where's your pride? "

There was a stretch of silence. The clacks and clangs of motorized rides intermingled with the chatter and shouts of the crowds around them and filled this silence—

"I don't mind throwing away my pride to get what I want."

Gogo froze as Kitsune gazed at her with an unreadable expression from behind his duo glowered at each other, until the others came around the corner and approached them. Fred reached them first and slung an arm around Gogo's shoulders. It was an arm that she tolerated very little.

"Dude, that was wicked." he laughed. "That makes three out of five rides. Our quest is almost completed. We should go on it again after we get this stuff over with."

"We still have to play two more booth games." Wasabi said pointedly, falling in place beside him.

"Don't you mean that we have to con our way through two more booth games?" Hiro smirked as he joined the gathered group. He side-glanced at Baymax to make sure that the robot was doing okay.

"Welcome back, Hiro and company." Baymax greeted politely as ever as Honey Lemon completed the circle.

This greeting was interrupted by Gogo slapping Hiro upside the head.

"Ow!" the boy shouted, rubbing the back of his head and glaring. "What was that for?"

"I am not going to risk being caught by cops," Gogo scowled, "just because you're a gambling addict."

"On a level of one to ten," Baymax pipped suddenly as his stomach flashed with an array of emoticons, "how would you rate your pain?"

"It's fine, it's fine." Hiro waved him off.

Kitsune stared at the scene unfolding before him. He tried his best to dissect it in an attempt to rationalize why the scene felt so familiar for him. And for a moment, he grasped the meaning of it—

And then his head split.

Searing pain ricocheted from the back of his neck to his temples. It spread like a fire from there, branching this way and that until it consumed his entire head. The smoke unfurling from the fire blurred his vision back.

He felt like he was choking.

"—stune?!"

And the world snapped like a whiplash back into place. The smoke cleared, and Kitsune found himself being drowned in hesitant, yet worried gazes. Some of the six that surrounded him were posed like they were about to touch him but they restrained themselves. He soon came to the conclusion that they were concerned with the fact that he had been standing with his hand clutching his forehead for five minutes straight. He hadn't even noticed.

"Are.." Honey Lemon tried slowly. "Are you okay?"

"On a level of one to ten," Baymax queried, "how would you rate your pai—" The robot suddenly paused as his scanners apparently picked up on something strange and perplexing. This pause, however, went by unnoticed.

"If you're not feeling up to it, you don't have to ride." Hiro said pointedly. "We'll handle the package for you and destroy it for you too after we go through whatever is that's inside it."

"No, don't be stupid." Kitsune stated simply. He turned away from them and began to walk — more like stagger — off. "I'll be back."

They watched as his silhouette disappeared into the crowd.

"I'm going to follow him." Honey Lemon murmured, tailing him before the others could stop her.

They watched as her silhouette disappeared into the crowd too.

Baymax welcomed the disruption. It allowed him mull over the biological-body scan data he had just retrieved from the masked man. The data that had been retrieved was clear and accurate — free from any medicicinal-biologically-altering variables — but the revelation of the data revealed something that brought up more questions. The scan from the masked man matched the first logged scan Baymax had ever made almost perfectly.

Something tugged at his core circuits; and he realized that he could not tell Hiro this information lest he choose to be an insufficient and ineffective health care provider and betray his creator.

* * *

Kitsune burst into the rest area room and stumbled to the solitary sink that was provided in the corner. He gripped the edges of the basin tightly, attempting to calm his heavy panting, and stared darkly into the mirror above the sink.

The room itself was gray, humid, and drab which didn't improve his condition in the least bit.

"Annoying."

He dug into a satchel that was hidden beneath his dark coat and pulled out a wrinkled plastic bag. In that plastic bag was a capped syringe that was filled with blue, clear liquid.

"You're addicted to it, aren't you?" came a light, pitying voice from behind.

Kitsune turned and saw the pink-suited woman from the corner of his eye.

"You're... destroying yourself." Honey said as she approached him cautiously.

"Well, that's ironic coming from you." he deadpanned, gazing at her reflection in the mirror. When she paused in confusion, he continued: "You like destroying things and watching things break apart. Why else would you enjoy pure, experimental chemistry. Danger and destruction excite you. I would be lying if I said otherwise."

She stared at him with a mixed expression as he finished his statement. She appeared to mull over something for a moment, before she approached him with clasped hands and a tight smile.

He watched her strange behavior cautiously.

"You might be right, Kitsune," she smiled brighter as she clasped his hands and wriggled the plastic bag away from him. She then dropped the plastic bag on the ground and smashed its contents to pieces with her high heel. After this matter was finished, she blinked back up at him: "Maybe I do find destruction rather fascinating."

Kitsune stared at the blue mess of shards and splatter that had once been a syringe. He stared and stared at for quite a long time, before he provided a response—

"...What the hell."

"Now, come on," Honey Lemon grinned, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and grabbing his arm tightly, "let's go finish those rides!"

And she tugged him outside into the bright evening light. The question of how exactly he had known she had an affinity for chemistry remained unasked.

* * *

The bell chimed loudly as the metal puck slammed upwards against it. A plethora of cheers and whoops followed this sound. Passersby watched as six adolescents yelled loudly and performed a seven-way high-five in front of a neon-lit high striker.

"It's all in the physics." Gogo smirked as she hefted the large rubber hammer over her shoulder.

"And _that_ is why we never mess with Gogo." Kitsune interjected — it was evident that he was smiling under his mask. The comment — which would have been considered strange in a different situation — was met with chuckles.

"That's right." Gogo nodded, jokingly glancing at her nails in a professional manner. "So, that makes it our last game, huh?"

"Looks like it." Wasabi grinned.

"We still have to ride one more ride," Hiro grinned cheekily. "And I call dibs on choosing the next one."

"Oh no you don't." Kitsune deadpanned and crossed his arms. "We could be going on non-deadly rides, like a carousel or something, for the VIP access. I don't understand why you like having your breakfast coming up your throat for."

"I'm with him." Wasabi agreed.

"Oh come on, dudes," Fred said, "let the little man choose. Choosing for yourself is good, y'know?"`

"Besides," Hiro added with a snarky grin, "might as well enjoy ourselves while we can, right?"

"Unbelievable…" Kitsune muttered, facepalming.

Hiro froze at this statement and stared. Kitsune met his gaze.

"What?" Kitsune questioned, sounding defensive.

"N-nothing." Hiro shook his head and lowered his gaze. "It's just that… for a second there, you reminded me of someone that I used to know…" He covered up his pained expression with a brighter one and said: "Y'know, you're not so much of a jerk once I get to know you."

Kitsune stared back at Hiro for a moment. His head suddenly buzzed with static again and a sharp pain shot through his temple. He grunted and held his head.

The withdrawal symptoms were getting worse. He needed his injections or he'd become absolutely useless. Irritation flared up inside of him as the image of his cracked syringe resurfaced in his mind. Why had he let that woman slide so easily?

"Kitsune," came a voice, "are you okay?"

"I'm fine." he answered slowly, his voice dissonant and hard again. "Let's pick a ride so that we can move on."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //sweats. I did say every day five chapters didn't I? it's just that i've been overwhelmed with full time working and my grad classes that just started up orz. that's no excuse tho since i have everything typed up... haha.... it's just that formatting everything for ao3 takes forever. my writing style has changed so much since writing this tho... wild.
> 
> And here's the usual plug and chug:  
> Take a gander at:  
> [ Six Chances ](https://sixchances.com/part-1-the-synchronized-six/) the original web fiction on my website or...  
> [ Six Chances ](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/28808/the-synchronized-six-six-chances) on Royal Road.  
> twitter: [ @sixchancesstory ](https://twitter.com/sixchancesstory)  
> If you don't like it, you can always unfollow/exit the website! It'd just mean a lot if you checked it out.


	7. Seventh Encounter: Tengoku (天国), Nii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Paradise"

Kitsune dragged his feet towards the platform that led to the roller coaster nicknamed "The Dead Python". It was quite the ironic name, seeing that it made people _feel_ dead instead of being dead itself. If he had been in a different position, he might have even laughed at it. Instead, all he felt was a bottomless pit of dread that was filled with nausea.

It was ridiculous how such an inanimate object made him so queasy. It just wasn't right. It was almost borderline pathetic. He needed to conquer this idiocy. But alas, the ride was not alive, so he couldn't beat it up nor could he maim and kill it. He could relish in his imagination, however.

"Uh, Kitsune?" Hiro tried lightly from behind. When the man didn't reply, he continued: "You're kind of _really_ holding up the line..."

The statement was undeniably true. The fox-masked stood at the very top of the spiraling stairwell that led to the compartment of the ride. He was frozen there, gripping the railings with sweating palms. Behind him, a long line of people were glaring, shouting, and scowling. He didn't understand why they were so eager to hop into a spiraling iron snake of death. He supposed that it was just in human nature to crave their own destruction.

Releasing his hold on the iron railings, Kitsune finally stepped forward and headed towards the closest compartment. Hiro trailed along behind him with a slight smirk.

"You really like torturing yourself, don't you?" The boy asked pleasantly.

Kitsune sent him a pointed glare which made Hiro smile all the more pleasantly. He slid into the compartment seat and scooted to the side so that Hiro could sit down beside him. They buckled themselves in and watched as the others of their group wandered to their own compartment seats. As soon as all of the booths were loaded, one of the conductors came to fasten and check the belts and holders.

"A little help over here," Kitsune called out to one of the conductors, causing Hiro to give him a strange look. The conductor walked over to where they sat and leaned over to fasten their seat belt for them. When the man left, Hiro saw Kitsune slide something into his pocket. Before he could ask him what it was, however, the mechanisms of the ride clicked into place and the roller coaster inched forward.

Hiro listened intently to the clacks and clangs of the wheels resounding against the tracks and stared up at the horizon. Half of the sun rested on the skyline, and it painted its surroundings in shades of orange and purple.

He shifted his gaze and found himself studying his booth buddy analytically. The man was not facing forward, but rather staring off to the side of the railings. The collar of his black coat billowed lightly in the updraft. Hiro's eyes trailed this collar and slowly traced the outline of the coat until they stopped at the hemming of the sleeve line.

"What is it?"

It was evident that Kitsune had noticed his staring and was curious enough to ask for the reason. His head was still turned when he asked the question, so Hiro had difficulty in understanding him. He managed though.

"Er," Hiro tried, averting his gaze, "I was just wondering where you got those... scars from. Not to be rude or anything — just wondering. You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to."

There was silence, and the roller coaster groaned in protest as it began to ascend a high curve. The silence dragged on as the coaster dragged upwards. Hiro began to regret asking the question and studied his hands awkwardly.

"... I don't remember." Came the vague answer in barely a whisper.

Hiro whipped his head up and stared at Kitsune in confusion. The man was still staring off into the distance — at least Hiro thought that he was. He couldn't really tell because the mask was obscuring his face.

"What do you mea—"

His words were cut off, because the coaster had reached its peak and was now hurtling downwards.

"—-aaaaahhhh!"

Despite the roar of the wind and the ring of his own screams in his ears, Hiro swore that he could hear Kitsune chanting under his breath. He supposed that he must have misheard, because the chant was—

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck"

The roller coaster reached ground level for barely a second, before it swung upwards and went along a vertical loop. Screams hit the air; and the chanted mantra became louder and more clipped—

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

Another loop came into view. This one was slanted at a forty-five degree angle.

"Fuck."

They hurtled towards it.

"Fuck."

* * *

As soon as the roller coaster clicked to a stop, Kitsune swiftly unfastened his seatbelt and stepped out of the booth. He strode over to the railings and leaned against them. He breathed deeply and sighed as his eyes scanned the crowded platform. His head was still spinning and his stomach still churning, making it rather difficult to focus.

His gaze locked onto Hiro's form; and he watched as Hiro leisurely exited the ride compartment and joined the others as they exited their own compartments. They laughed easily with one another — almost too easily. Whether that fact annoyed him or pleased him, he wasn't quite sure. What he was sure of was that he needed them on his side for now. He supposed that they must have seen him staring, because they all turned and waved him over.

"That was a nice detour." He said rather dryly as he approached them. "We can get the package now."

" _If_ we win the free tour." Wasabi commented pointedly.

"May the odds ever be in our favor." Gogo added with sarcasm as she blew a strand a stray hair away from her face.

"They better be." Kitsune muttered, crossing his arms. "This is already a big enough waste of time."

"How can having fun be a waste of time?" Honey Lemon grinned airily. "Especially since we've all... become closer with one another!"

Fred nodded ferociously in agreement, as if he was listening to a heated sermon instead of an off-handed comment. He solicited several stares from passersby, but he evidently didn't seem to care.

"Let's go." Kitsune said coolly, ignoring the two more positive members of the group. He turned and began making his way off of the ride platform without checking to see if they were behind him.

"The guy is really passive-aggressive, don't you think?" Hiro questioned with a smirk as he crossed his arms.

"I'm not too sure about the 'passive' part of that statement." Gogo frowned with a delicately raised eyebrow.

Hiro shrugged and eyed Kitsune's slowly shrinking back. Something about the broadness of that back was oddly familiar to the adolescent; and it drew a sharp pain in his heart, like a violin string being plucked. He shrugged this feeling off and trailed after the fox-masked man with the others following close behind him.

He soon caught up with Kitsune and fell into stride with the man.

"Where's your robot?" Kitsune asked, glancing down at him.

The asked question caused the others in the group to exchange looks of confusion.

"We left him by the centre map…" Hiro frowned, glancing at Kitsune. " _You_ were the one who recommended putting him there, so that he wouldn't draw attention attention to us — which I still think you were being too dramatic about."

"Oh." Kitsune frowned beneath his mask distractedly. "Right."

"You okay, man?" Fred asked from behind him. "You're kinda trippin' the trip."

"It doesn't matter." He brushed the two off, picking up his pace. He threw a glance over at Hiro and nodded rigidly at him: "I hope you have your equipment with you and a way to transport your robot into the administration office without getting noticed."

"Dude," Hiro frowned back at him with a cocked eyebrow as he quickened his pace, "you need to have a lot more faith in us than that."

Kitsune didn't reply, nor did he indicate that he had actually heard the statement. Hiro wasn't sure whether the man was just plain rude or simply 'not all there'.

The centre map — a large electronic billboard that displayed the locations of rides, food stalls, and game booths — soon loomed into view; Baymax sat on a bench right beside it and came to a stand as he registered the approach of the group of six. Hiro was at his side in an instant, the others — save for Kitsune who lingered behind and observed the scene with an odd eye of calculation — following behind him.

"How was your ride, Hiro?" Baymax questioned in his usual mechanical dictation.

"Pretty sweet." Hiro grinned, before his expression was taken over by a more serious one. "Anyways, we need to hurry and pack you up so that we can sneak you past security."

Baymax watched as Hiro began to dig through his jacket pocket. After doing this for several seconds, he tilted his head upwards to gaze at the man who stood far behind the adolescent. Said man was standing with crossed arms and with an air of aloofness and indifference about him.

"Here we are!" Hiro exclaimed as he pulled out a small and rectangular red box from his pocket. He pressed a node on the box and threw it to the ground. Rigid, parallel lines appeared on the box; and it unfolded itself along these lines, becoming larger and larger, until it became something that Baymax recognized. It was his charging stabilizer.

"Impressive." Kitsune nodded as he came to Hiro's side and stared at the box.

"Well, yeah." Hiro broke out into a proud grin. He reached into his other pocket and pulled out another box. This one was painted in varying shades of purple. "All of our suits are like this. On-the-go suits."

"You should make its activation simpler." Kitsune continued in deadpan. "It's complex activation, drains the battery, right?"

Hiro flinched and scowled: "Well, yeah, but I'm working on it!"

"What do you know about robotics anyways, Foxy?" Gogo scoffed jokingly from beside him.

There was a pause of silence.

"I know enough."

The answer was a bit off, like Kitsune wasn't even sure of what he was saying. It was a bit strange. The man had always seemed to radiate an aura of confidence and intimidation. The tone of his voice made it seem like his intimidating aura had never existed in the first place.

Gogo shrugged loosely at the answer and turned towards the general direction of the administration office. She watched from the corner of her eyes as Hiro guided Baymax into his charging conduit. She watched as the robot deflated and watched as the conduit swallowed him whole before shrinking back into its original, miniature size. She watched as Hiro shoved the box back into his pocket. She realized that she was doing a lot of watching, and she wasn't too sure why. Perhaps it was because she felt both very uneasy and comfortable at the same time. It was a strange feeling.

"Mission: Ultimatum Breaker — engage!" came a shout from right next to her ear, causing her to snap out of her reverie.

Fred was grinning excitedly beside her. Too excitedly. It was irritating. So, she punched him in the arm. That didn't seem to put an end to it, however, because he let out another incomprehensible shout and charged towards what he evidently thought to be the administrative offices.

"I'll go get him." Wasabi sighed from beside her.

Once Wasabi had managed to reign Fred back to the group, they started towards the offices with the sun sliding deeper into the night behind them.

* * *

By the time they reached the administrative office building — it had been located half-way across the entire park — Kitsune was only a few straws away from irritated. It didn't help that the secretary sitting at the receptionist desk was taking his time checking their ride-booth-bands. Said bands were supposedly designed to make the park run more efficiently by recording what games and what rides customers had been on. Evidently, it wasn't as efficient as the makers had planned, because the secretary was having difficulty matching the band data to the computer records.

"I'm sorry," he apologized for the upteenth time in a nasily voice, "the program is a bit slow."

"Oh," Honey Lemon smiled lightly from the other side of the desk, "it's fine. Really!"

Kitsune glowered at her. Her positivity was irritatingly infectious.

"Are you always so optimistic." He asked, trying to keep his voice as monotone as possible. It was getting strangely difficult for him to do so.

"There's no reason not to be." She smiled thinly back at him.

"There!" the secretary shouted, jabbing at a button on the keyboard in front of him. He looked up and smiled at the gathered six. "You're bands have been approved!" He placed the six bands that he had taken from them onto the counter and motioned for Honey to take them. She obliged and distributed the bands to their respected owners.

"So," Hiro pressed as he moved away from where he was tapping away at a guest computer in the corner of the room and up to the counter, "did we win?"

"Seeing that only two other people have applied for the tour excluding your group," the secretary replied thickly, "I would have to say yes."

The room broke out into cheers, and the second six-way high-five of the day was implemented. The secretary watched this commotion with a bored expression and gestured to a black, steel door on the other side of the room once the noise had died down.

"Enter the waiting room over there," the secretary nodded, "and your tour guide will be shortly with you."

They nodded and walked collectively towards the indicated door and entered the waiting room. Said room was surprisingly large and was lined with rows upon rows of chairs, two of which were occupied. Another black, metal door was located just across the room and most likely led to the deeper and more "official" offices of the department.

"I would like to say that I'm impressed with the size," Kitsune muttered, "but I would be lying."

"What?" Wasabi laughed. "Are you secretly some rich guy or somethin'?"

"That explains it!" Fred clapped his hands together. "You must be like Batman or Ironman — well, more like Batman since you've got that whole anti-hero thing going on."

"I'm just not impressed." Kitsune answered in monotone with a shrug.

"Okay, Classy Fox." Gogo rolled her eyes as she brushed past him and plopped loosely into one of the provided chairs.

Kitsune ignored her comment and allowed his gaze to drift towards the two who were not a part of their group. They would be a nuisance and an obstacle in his mission. A complication. How he hated complications. Brushing this fact aside, he made his way across the room and tried the door there. It was locked.

"We have to wait for a tour guide." came a deep and chastising tone from Complication One. "He'll bring the key to open the door."

Kitsune turned and sent said complication a cold, steely glare. This glaring expression turned into an expression of mild disbelief as he registered Honey, Fred, and Wasabi greeting both of the complications. Gogo, on the other hand, was still lounging easily in her chair; while Hiro… Hiro hung out awkwardly in the background and wore an uncomfortable smile. This uncomfortable smile lingered as Fred began the introductions—

"I'm Fred; occupation: college mascot."

"My name is Michael." Complication One introduced himself.

"Sarah…" Complication Two mumbled.

"Nice to meet you. I'm—" Wasabi began.

"He's called Wasabi." Fred interrupted him.

"It's a nickname." Wasabi explained with an exasperated sigh as he received a duo of strange looks.

"If we're going with nicknames," Honey Lemon smiled amiably, "mine is Honey Lemon."

"Gogo." Gogo waved back at them without actually turning to face them.

Silence fell. Kitsune narrowed his eyes at the sudden change in atmosphere and found himself approaching the conversing group. He also found himself nudging Hiro forward. Why he did such a thing, he wasn't quite sure. It just felt… natural. That or maybe it was because his head and stomach were still spinning. It was taking all of his willpower to control his shakes.

"I-I'm Hiro." Hiro finally introduced himself, glancing back at Kitsune with an expression of mixed gratefulness and confusion.

The two complications nodded and smiled, before they turned their heads towards Kitsune's rigid form. Kitsune simply stared back down at them, hoping that they felt the coldness seeping from his glare. Said glare was cut off by a sharp pain in his ribcage. Kitsune glanced downwards and saw that Hiro had nudged him the ribs.

"What."

Hiro sighed and rolled his eyes at the response, before he jerked his thumb backwards towards Kitsune and said: "This is Kitsune. He bites."

"Why is he wearing a mask?" Michael grimaced. "Is it Halloween or something?"

It took everything within the fox-faced man to not rip the man's throat out right then and there. Murdering would create complications, so Kitsune decided that he would settle with a quiet, snarky remark instead:

"Yes, but the only disturbing and horrifying thing here is you."

"What?" Complication One frowned.

"Nothing!" Wasabi coughed loudly, choking on a laugh. "Nothing at all!"

It was then that the door that they had entered from swung open and a sharp-looking man entered the room. He nodded at them and introduced himself as their tour guide. The group greeted the tour guide in a mostly warm manner and followed him to the locked door.

Kitsune watched as the man dug into his pockets and pulled out a ring of keys. The guide sorted through the allotted rings, selected one from the jumble of them, and inserted it into the keyhole in the door. A click resounded; and he turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. Before the guide could do anything else, however, Kitsune hit him hard on the crook of his neck. The guide hit the floor with a loud, resonating thud.

"What the hell?!" came the shrill shouts from the complications and some of the others.

"He's just unconscious." Kitsune said, bending down to search the unconscious tour guide's pockets. "The package should be located in the shipping containment room." He pulled out several slips of paper and shoved them into his pockets. Coming to a stand, he turned to gaze at the two complications and deadpanned: "Stay quiet yourselves or I'll make you."

Michael and Sarah nodded and swallowed.

"Okay, okay," Wasabi stepped in between Kitsune and the two wide-eyed bystanders, "we're in, but was it really necessary to knock out the nice tour guide?" He gestured to the drooling man.

"This route was faster and had less complications." Kitsune replied as he entered the hallway that lay behind the door.

"You and your complications." Hiro scowled.

"Please keep quiet about this," Honey Lemon whispered soothingly to the still wide-eyed duo, "we're honestly doing this to help." She received another affirmative nod which caused her to smile brightly.

With that, the remaining five entered the hallway and closed the door shut behind them. Sarah and Michael stared at the door for several long seconds, before they shakily began to head towards the door from which they came.

* * *

"You don't think that they'll alert anybody, do you?"

Wasabi asked such a question as he clicked the last clasp to his armored-gear to a close. He glanced up and realized that most of the others were too busy equipping their own armor to answer — especially Hiro who had freed Baymax from the red cube and was now trying to simultaneously equip his own armor, as well as Baymax's.

"No." Kitsune, who was leaning against one of the walls of the hall with crossed arms, answered with an underlying tone of impatience hidden beneath his voice. "The irrational fear of me coming after them will prevent them from speaking...The security camera feed," he pointed upwards with one hand to where a miniscule, black dot hovered on the wall, "might tip the guards off, on the other hand."

"I already replaced the security feed with a looped one." Hiro scoffed with a roll of his eyes. "Why do you think I was messing around with the guest computers in the secretary office for?"

"Impressive." Kitsune nodded. "What is not impressive is your ability to change quickly."

"It's harder than it looks." Gogo shot back as she fastened her helmet on. "You should just be glad that we don't have to take off all of our clothes to equip our gear. You'd have to see Fred in the nude otherwise."

"Nothin' wrong with bein' nude!" Fred sang back to her, before he whipped his head around and gestured vaguely at nothing. "Team Big Hero Six and Comany is ready to go!"

With that comment made, it became evident that everyone had successfully managed to equip their armaments. This fact pleased Kitsune, so much so that he uncrossed his arms and approached them.

"The door leading to the shipment room should be at the very end of the hall." Kitsune informed them. "Since the package is of high importance, there will probably be guards."

"No, problem." Gogo smirked, punching her gloved fist into her hand.

Kitsune nodded acknowledgingly at her and turned to lead them down the hall, before he was suddenly stopped by a grip on his wrist. He turned and saw Hiro frowning up at him.

"What."

"If you're going by a terms," Hiro replied steadily, "you can't kill any of the guards."

There was a pause of silence.

"Killing the guards in this situations would create too many complications anyways." Kitsune replied.

With that promising answer ringing in the air, the group of seven made their way down the hall. Fortunately, it didn't take them long to find the shipment room door. Unfortunately, when they reached the door, it became apparent that it was electronically locked. It required an identification card to open it.

"I guess I can have a crack at hacking it open." Hiro frowned with a tilted head.

Before the adolescent could continue, Kitsune dug into his pocket, pulled out a slender card from his pocket, and slid it across the slot next to the doorframe. There was a soft click and a woosh of air. The door was now open.

"Why do you think I asked the ride conductor to check my seatbelt for?" Was Kitsune's only response.

Hiro suppressed a laugh — which was quite a difficult feat, seeing that the others were quietly snickering behind him — and pushed the door open. The room lying behind the door was dimly lit and musty and unbelievably large. The dark outlines of large steel racks stacked with cardboard boxes seemed to stretch on for miles.

"Creepy." Wasabi commented.

"It could be worse." Honey Lemon replied pointedly.

Kitsune gently brushed past them and stepped into the darkness.

"Any idea where this package is?" Gogo grimaced.

Kitsune held up a finger and listened intently. It was a bit difficult because his head was spinning in a dizzying manner, but he could hear soft, muffled chatter emanating from deeper within the storage room.

"Do you hear that?" Gogo whispered from beside him, evidently having picked up on the whispered chattering as well.

He nodded in response and began to quietly tread towards the direction of the sound. The others followed quietly behind him — save for Baymax who was clanging rather noisily. The clanging wasn't too loud, however; and with Hiro's direction, the robot managed to walk along more quietly.

They drew nearer to an area of the shipment room that was lit more brightly that the rest of the room. Ducking behind a large, plastic-covered crate, the group of seven peered at the scene playing out beneath the light.

A group of men and women stood rigidly around a white table on top of which a silver case rested. Kitsune couldn't really see how many guards there were — his vision was beginning to become blurry.

"My scanners indicate that there are twelve guards total." Baymax chimed quietly from behind him.

"I'll take the closest two," Kitsune muttered, reaching under his mask to rub his eyes.

"Are you sure you're up for it?" Wasabi frowned worriedly beside him. "You don't sound too good."

"I'm fine." He whispered through gritted teeth.

"I'll take the two to the left." Gogo drew slowly as she side glanced at the fox-faced man.

"Baymax and I will take the two at the center." Hiro announced.

"Fredzilla will rampage on the dudes on the right."

"I'll take the two in the corner over there." Wasabi supplied.

"I guess that leaves the two at the very back for me then." Honey Lemon nodded. There was an odd glimmer of excitement in her eyes.

"On three." Hiro whispered under his breath. "One, two, three!"

…

Kitsune didn't understand what was happening. He couldn't think, see, or hear straight. His mind was cloudy, the world around him was a hazy, and a high-pitched ringing sound was resonating in his ears.

Worried faces loomed over him. And by gauging the angle at which they were looking at him, he quickly came to the conclusion that he was laying belly-up on the ground. He continued to gaze up at the faces in confusion; and only stirred into action when he saw the outline of a hand drift towards his face — his mask.

He shot up immediately, smacked the hand way, and pressed his mask against his face. It took him a while to notice that he was panting rather heavily.

"A-Are you okay?" came a barely discernable and worried voice. The words sounded muddled, like the person who had spoken them was underwater.

"What happened?" Kitsune finally managed to mutter.

Hiro's blurred and worried expression drifted into view.

"We were in the middle catching the guards off… guard." The adolescent explained. "Baymax and I had taken out our last guy, so we were going to see if we could help the others. And then you... you had already taken out one of your guys, but after that you kind of just stood there… The other guard whacked you in the head."

That explained the dull pain at the back of his neck.

"I recommend the application of soothing hot oil or aloe supplements on the head injury." came Baymax's warm tone.

Kitsune felt another blanket of heated confusion wrap itself around his mind. Why had he been fighting guards? Why had he been working with Hiro and the others for? Why was he here in the first place? Kitsune supposed that he must have asked some of his questions out loud, because he could see several members of the group exchanging looks.

"We're here for the package," Gogo frowned, "remember?"

Everything clicked into the place — the package. He needed to destroy it.

He shot up to a stand immediately, ignoring the warning protests of those who surrounded him, and approached the white table. He lunged at the silver case lying there and pulled it into his arms.

"Remember our deal?" came a testy question from behind.

Kitsune turned his head ever so slightly and saw the group of six staring at him warily from the corner of his eye. He turned to face them fully, shifting the case so that he could grip it tightly with his left hand.

"You said that you would let us see what was inside of the package," Hiro frowned, "if we helped you."

'I never said that I kept my promises.' Kitsune said — rather, he wished he had said this. Instead, he heard a quiet voice whisper and urge him at the very back of his head. _Trust them._

The next moment found Kitsune rigidly handing the case over to Hiro. The former frowned confused at his own actions, while the latter flashed a smile of relief.

Hiro gripped the case tightly in his hands and exchanged looks with those around him. They gave him affirmative nods, prompting him to stride over to the white table and place the case delicately on its surface. He clicked the clasps of the case open and slowly lifted its top as the others — save for Kitsune who gazed at them from a distance — gathered behind him.

Within the case resided three items. A pair of vials that were filled with a dark-blue substance and a packet of papers.

Honey's eyes widened in recognition as she gazed at the vials and resisted turning her head to look at Kitsune. Hiro was more entranced, on the other hand, with the packet of papers. He lifted these papers out of the case and held them out for the others to see. They began to skim and flip through the pages, their disbelief and disgust growing with every skimmed word and every turned page.

There was a long moment of silence filled with nothing but the noise of fluttering papers; and then, Hiro threw the papers back into the case and clenched his fists.

"The perfect formula. Physical endurance, eternal stamina. Immortality. Human Trials."

— Hiro said all of these syllables with perfect cadence but with a shaking voice and a shaking head. He whipped his head around and stared at Kitsune who stood stationary.

"I can't believe," Wasabi said in barely a whisper, "that people can actually do such terrible things like that... I—"

"Those bastards need to be stopped." Gogo muttered through gritted teeth, before she turned abruptly and punched the table. "Damnit."

"We can work together to stop these guys." Fred spluttered as he drew back his mask; he turned and nodded at Kitsune. "Stop them from doing this stuff. Expose them. Together!"

"Exposing them won't stop him." Kitsune replied drily. "There's only one way to stop him and it goes against your... morals."

Silence fell.

"There's always another way—-

"Not this time."

"Trial 10c." Honey Lemon murmured under her breath as she rubbed her arm. "The file said that this new formula had been previously tested in Trial 10c." She paused and look at Kitsune, "You're..."

"A survivor of Trial 5b." Kitsune answered for her; he paused, before he added: "They move rather fast."

"So that's why..." Honey Lemon whispered in realization.

"Please don't try to gauge the reason for why I'm after them." Kitsune interrupted her stolidly, extending his left hand outwards. "I'd like to destroy the case now."

There was a pause of silence; no one moved to retrieve the case. It was not as if the six did not want to hand it over to Kitsune. It was just that the atmosphere hung so heavily down on them that they could not move. Wasabi, however, managed to untangle himself from the heaviness and drifted towards the case. He gripped it in his hands, stared intently at it, and stood rigidly. Kitsune studied him carefully, hand still extended.

"Let me." Wasabi finally spoke, turning his head upwards to gaze at Kitsune. "Let me destroy it." His voice was firm and calm, but there was some sort of righteous anger beneath it.

"Wasabi…" Honey Lemon murmured, reaching for him.

"Please." Wasabi spoke again, tightening his grasp on the case. "Let me."

Kitsune stared at him for a long, drawn out, silent moment; before he lowered his hand and averted his gaze. A silent yes. Wasabi sighed quietly at this answer and activated his laser-blades.

"You guys should stay back." He warned to the others.

They nodded and quickly backed away. They never allowed their gazes to leave the gleaming case, nor did they allow their gazes to drift from Wasabi's hard watched carefully as he tossed the sleek box into the air and sliced it through several times with his buzzing blades. He sliced it through so many times that all that remained were ashes.

"We'll escape through the vents." Kitsune said as he watched the gray particles sluggishly drift towards the ground. He paused, glancing at Baymax who stood silently off to the side, and frowned, "I don't think your robot will fit."

"Well, I guess it's time to get you back in your charging console, Baymax." Hiro said as he fiddled around with his suit in an attempt to find the compartment containing said console.

Baymax watched for several moments as Hiro toyed around with his suit, before his gaze drifted upwards towards Kitsune. The fox-masked man was leaning against a crate a couple feet away. Beside him stood Fred who had evidently strolled back to start an amicable conversation with the man.

"Hiro," Baymax drew as he lowered his gaze to the adolescent who was still rummaging through his pockets, "I would like to run a check up on Fred's vitals before we move on."

"Huh?" Hiro frowned distractedly. He looked up in confusion and then looked back at Fred with worry. "What's wrong with him?"

"It is nothing of significant danger." Baymax replied. "But I would like to double-check his readings to confirm that everything is clear."

"Alright." Hiro nodded and gestured backwards. "Have at it."

There was an awkward pause of silence.

"I would like to scan him in private." Baymax said gently.

"Huh?" Hiro did a double-take. "Why?"

"This type of scan requires," Baymax replied lightly, "clothing remo—

"Okay," Gogo coughed loudly, grabbing Honey Lemon and Wasabi by the arm and walking away, "I've heard enough."

Hiro stared after the trio in confusion before the realization smacked him hard in the face. Said face turned a deep shade of rosemary red.

"O-Oh! Right… I forgot about that." Hiro stuttered, snapping his head back to gaze at his healthcare companion. "W-Well," he gestured awkwardly behind him, "have… at it."

Baymax nodded in confirmation and wobbled over to where Fred and Kitsune stood conversing. It was a rather one-sided conversation, but it was evident that Kitsune cared enough to listen. Every once in a while, Fred would pause in his long-winded monologue and Kitsune would give him a subtle nod of the head. It was during one of these pauses that Baymax made his way into the conversation.

"Fred," Baymax stated, "I would like to perform a full vital scan on you to confirm that you are well."

"Huh," Fred nodded, before he gestured widely to his body, "well, have at it, buddy!"

"It requires…" Baymax paused, turning to look at KItsune pointedly. "The removal of clothing."

Before Baymax had even managed to finish his sentence, Kitsune turned sharply to leave.

"Oh." Fred nodded in realization, before he shrugged his shoulders loosely. "Alright, let's go then!"

With that the two headed towards the nearest corner. Fortunately for them, there was an empty one located right behind a series of metal containers. They walked together towards the corner in easy silence. Before they even reached it , however, Fred began to pull off his shirt.

"Fred." Baymax beeped as he registered what Fred was doing. "There's no need to remove your clothing."

"What?" Fred blinked in confusion, having somehow become entangled in his shirt. A look of realization flickered across his face, and he nodded wisely: "Oh, I see. You're a bit shy when it comes to this stuff, right? It's cool, man. We're friends. We're dude friends."

"I was using the vital scan as an excuse to get away from the others." Baymax explained calmly.

"Oh!" Fred nodded, before he frowned. "Wait, what for?" His eyes widened suddenly and he gasped loudly: "Don't tell me this is a love confession!"

"This is not love confession, Fred." Baymax replied. "I have come across some information that I would like to share with you."

"Oh, alright." Fred nodded easily, finally untangling himself from his shirt and sliding the cloth material back on. "Well, shoot."

Fred watched as Baymax's stomach brightened and projected a bright screen on its surface. This screen became split in half, the first half melding into a statistical data chart. At the very top of this chart flickered the picture of someone whom Fred hadn't seen in years. As soon as he saw this picture, a dull pain thudded in his heart; but, like always, he laughed it off.

"Okay," Fred nodded deeply, "so… this is Tadashi's… scan stuff, right?"

"Correct." Baymax answered with a deep nod that just looked awkward.

On the other half of the split screen appeared another picture. This picture held Kitsune's face — rather, it held his mask. A steady list of statistical data blinked underneath this image.

"And this is Kitsune's scan stuff…"

"Correct."

Fred blinked up curiously at Baymax's expression — not that the robot was physically able to morph his face into an expression. The robot stared quietly back down at him. Unsure of what exactly to do next, Fred began to examine the data. He didn't understand what half of the numbers meant, but he was able to realize the fact that Baymax wanted him to either compare or contrast the two data graphs.

After several minutes of staring, Fred found that he could not locate any differences between the two sets; he found many similarities, however. No, that wasn't quite right. All that he found in correlation between the two charts were similarities. There was not a single difference among the two.

Fred suddenly became very confused. He didn't understand how things ended up like this. Things had been so good and smooth up until then. For one, they had finally made a friend of sorts of Kitsune. And they had successfully prevented the package from falling into the wrong hands via its destruction.

But... now…?

"I am telling you this because your psychological profile indicates that you would be less distressed than the others by this information." came Baymax's steady voice. "But my scanners indicate you are experience a large amount of emotional disturbance. I apologize for making you feel such disturbance."

There was a long stretch of silence.

"Baymax, my man," Fred laughed nervously, "if what you're showing me is the real deal… then that would mean… Kitsune is… Tadashi?"

"Correct."

Fred stared and stared and finally came to this conclusion: things had gotten ten times better. His best friend was alive, after all! Fred didn't care much for _how_ Tadashi was alive — he was too overjoyed with the fact that he in fact was living and breathing.

Using all of his willpower, Fred swallowed a shout of jubilation, wiped away the tears that had begun to burn at his eyes, and shook Baymax excitedly.

"Dude, we need to tell the others this!"

"I do not think that would be wise." Baymax tilted his head as his stomach dimmed and flickered off. "Please think about our current circumstances, Fred."

There was silence; and the full weight of the situation slammed into Fred like a freight train. The force of it was so hard that it made Fred sick to his stomach.

"Oh." Fred laughed lightly as he averted his eyes. "Right. It would be awkward, wouldn't it? Yeah…"

A sudden shout cut the conversation short. Baymax and Fred stared at each other in confusion, before they sprinted — well, Baymax wobbled — towards the direction of the sound. They stepped into the light-flooded clearing they had previously occupied and found themselves staring at one angry Gogo and one indifferent Kitsune — no, it was Tadashi. Honey Lemon, Wasabi, and Hiro were surrounding the duo and were making fruitless attempts to stop Gogo's onslaught.

"Woah, chill out." Fred laughed lightly as he approached the two; he placed a hand on both of their shoulders and allowed his gaze to linger on Tadashi's mask. "What's the problem here?"

"Mr. Foxy here wants us to tell him where Callaghan is!" Gogo seethed.

"What?" Fred blinked at her in surprise, before he raised an eyebrow at Tadashi. "Why?"

"I need to ask him some questions." Kitsune replied evenly. "I won't bring him any harm."

"Yeah right!" Gogo scoffed crossly. "You of all peo—

"Alright." Fred nodded, cutting him off and earning himself incredulous looks from all those who surrounded him.

"What?!" Gogo seethed, punching him in the arm. "You can't be serious!"

"We'll go to him together." Fred nodded simply. "Another awesome hero-anti-hero team-up thing."

"Fred…" Wasabi frowned lightly. "Are you sure that—"

"Why not?" Fred grinned back at him. "Callaghan is totes involved with this whole CASCO thing, so he'll probably be able to tell all of us how to stop the deadly, diabolical, evil organization."

Kitsune smirked beneath his mask — he tried to at least. He was feeling rather uncomfortable. Fred kept gazing (lovingly?) at him and still had a hand on his shoulder. It took everything within the fox-masked man to not slice off the man's hand then and there. At the same time, however, he felt oddly… comfortable (?) with the entire situation.

He heard the same voice whisper gently to him at the back of his head again—

_Trust them._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm crying re-reading this chapter--like crying, laughing at the swearing. I want to cut it out now, and I have no idea what 16 y/o me was thinking... but i'm gonna keep it for nostalgic purposes unless i decide a rewrite. 
> 
> And here's the usual plug and chug self-promo:  
> Take a gander at:  
> [ Six Chances ](https://sixchances.com/part-1-the-synchronized-six/) the original web fiction on my website or...  
> [ Six Chances ](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/28808/the-synchronized-six-six-chances) on Royal Road.  
> twitter: [ @sixchancesstory ](https://twitter.com/sixchancesstory)  
> If you don't like it, you can always unfollow/exit the website! It'd just mean a lot if you checked it out.


	8. Eight Encounter: Koku (告)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Revelation"

There were a lot of things that the city of San Fransokyo had forgotten. These things were often either deemed too dull or too insignificant to hold the city's interest, and they were carefully tucked away into its darkest, most unseeable corners. Abandoned buildings were among these forgotten things, and they littered the city in droves.

A young red-haired woman, holding blue crinkled grocery bags in both of her hands, stood in front of one of these abandoned buildings. The street that the building rested on was lined with shabby-looking apartments and appeared all but abandoned. The building was a cement gray and was four floors high. A series of windows lined each floor; and from several of these windows, light and movement was able to be seen.

The woman went up the small flight of steps leading up to the building's steel doors and then pushed the doors open with the side of her hip. She slid in through the small crack that she made for herself and entered the building.

She passed through a reception-looking sort of room that had checkered-flooring and climbed the stairwell that lay at the very back of it. Just as she reached the top of these stairs, she felt cold metal press against her temple and she paused. She side glanced and registered a figure standing to her left holding a gun.

"'Ey, it ain't cool to walk right into somebody's turf, y'know?" came a deep, yet youthful voice from the darkness. "It's kind of just like poppin' somebody's bubble of space. Like, who does that? Do you know what it feels like to be standing in the wet, sticky remnants of a popped space bubble—er, wait. Pause. No. That sounds wrong. Let me start ove—

"Hey, Taka-baka," the woman grinned like a chesire cat and dug into one of her grocery bags, "I got you those beat headphones that ya' wanted." She pulled out a plastic box containing slick headphones and tossed it up and down loftily in the air. Tanned hands stretched out from the darkness and lunged for the box, but she quickly pulled backwards and tucked the object under her arms. "I'm not sure if I wanna give it to ya' since you've just been so rude and unwelcoming to me, ya know?"

The figure then emerged from the shadows, revealing a young man of lean build and medium stature. His desperate eyes were hidden by large aviator shades that rested on the bridge of his nose, and his creased eyebrows were hidden by his sweeping sandy hair.

"Wait," the young man said aghast, "you really gonna deny a cool kid his cool beats, Neko?"

"Cool kid needs ta' apologize." Neko smirked.

"Cool kids don't apologize."

"Really now?"

"Yup."

"I guess these cool headphones are mine then."

"Damnit. Not cool. Is this some lame blackmail, guilt trip into a bottomless abyss of humility? Fine. I'll swallow my pride like a decent human being, and maybe I'll even get some character development going on. Sorry, aight? I was just tryin' to get into the right mojo, you hear? Like, enter my zen palace. You have no idea how hard it is to enter the glorious zen palace. It's like harder than destroying Voldemort's horcruxes, harder than taking the hobbits to Aisengard, harder than opening a sealed pickle jar—

"Taka-Baka," Neko grinned, tossing him the plastic box, "you're rambling again."

"Can't help but speak the beats in my mind." Taka replied as he caught the item.

"Know where the other kitty cats are prowlin'?" She asked, hand on hip.

"Tako is probably holed up in his room writing some weird emo poetry about how unfair life is; Ookami is probs lecturing Hebi on language or somethin' or scrubbing her mouth out with some bleach and soap — girl really needs to lower the R to a G; Usagi is probably babysitting Hitsuji; Kitsune is totes brooding on the roof again or staring dramatically off into the dista—

"Huh?" Neko blinked in slight surprise. "Kit is back?"

"Yeah." Taka replied with a slight nod. "Bothered him a bit couple of minutes ago. Some bro bonding time you could say."

"Hmm..." Neko pursued her lips and slid past him. "Well, I'll leave you to making up your raps then." She waved and turned the corner, leaving Taka to rap to himself at the stairwell. She walked along the hall, kicking empty cans and beer bottles to the side. She paused by a door that was slightly ajar and outlined in light and kicked it open. Two out of three of the occupants of the room started and turned in surprise.

The room itself was rather large, and the floorboards were littered with scraps of paper. The walls of the room were spray-painted with colorful sceneries and intricately designed words — the only thing indicating that the walls had been once white were the occasional splotches of white that peaked in between the words and sceneries. There was a thin mattress spread out in the corner of the room and next to that was a large wooden table. The occupant who was not captivated by her dramatic entrance was cribbling away on a sketchbook at this table, while the two other occupants were sitting on the mattress.

"Back from the groceries already, Kittykat?" asked one of the two sitting on the mattress with an easy but sharp smile.

"That's correct, Bunnyboy." Neko grinned as she dug into her grocery bag and pulled out a lilac bundle. "Got ya this since ya lost your bandana on the your mission. I know how much ya like keepin' your neck warm." She tossed the bundle to him and watched as he deftly caught it and unfolded it.

"A scarf, huh?" Usagi chucked loudly, before he nodded appreciatively. "Thanks, Kittykat."

"'Course, Bunnyboy." She smiled her cheshire cat smile again. She then lowered her gaze to the figure sprawled out next to him, and her gaze softened. "How about you, doll? Ready for Santa Neko to show you what she got for ya?"

The figure sprawled out slowly blinked his gray eyes and turned his pale head. He stared at her for a long moment before the corners of his mouth flickered upwards.

"Neko got Hitsuji a present?" he questioned in a soft voice that was almost like a whisper.

"Got that right, doll." She replied, digging into her bag once more and pulling out a cat plushie. She walked over to him and placed the stuffed animal by his side.

Hitsuji smiled lightly back up at he as she did this and rolled over on his side to embrace the toy. He buried his face in it and then stilled. It took a while for Neko to realize that he had fallen asleep.

"Hmm…" drew the occupant of the room seated at the table in a low and melodious voice. "Isn't it a little bit egotistical of you to be giving Sheep a cat-themed toy, Cat?"

Neko narrowed her eyes and came to a stand with crossed arms. She stood like this for a moment, before her scowl melted into a smirk; and she approached the man. Said man had a head of long dark locks that framed his angular face. Piercings lined his ears and tattoos peaked up on his pale skin from behind his black wifebeater.

"That's not a very nice way to speak to someone who went out of her way to buy you a thing, Takoyaki." Neko said as she leaned back the chair he was sitting on.

"You know I hate it when you call me that." He replied as he met her gaze.

"Exactly." She replied with a smirk. "And you know that I hate you." She released her grip on his chair and watched as he nearly fell out of it.

"That's really hurtful, you know?" He frowned as he returned to his sketching. "I don't know what I ever did to you."

"You annoy me." She snapped quickly. "And I don't trust you."

"You're going to make me cry, Cat." He snapped back in a monotone.

"Good." She smirked again, digging into her bag and pulling out an ink set. She slammed the set on the table and scowled inside when she saw that he didn't even flinch. "But don't blame me. It's just my cat instincts screamin' at me."

"Thank you, Cat." He smiled lightly, before he turned to face her. "Oh. Do you need more of the physical enhancements?"

"No." Neko replied stonily. "But I would like ta know which one of your consorts in CASCO is brave enough to deliver the drugs to us every single week."

"That's confidential." He replied in a sing-song voice.

"Guys, you're disturbing Hitsuji." Usagi interrupted their confrontation with a sigh as he lightly patted the squirming Hitsuji on the head.

"This cat was just about ta skip outta here." Neko replied with a light smile. And she did so without another comment. Take stared after her with a glowering gaze.

Neko reentered the dark hallway and dug into grocery bags once more. She rummaged around for a moment, before she pulled out a glass bottle of milk. She tugged the bottle open and began to chug the milk down, before she returned to her stroll. She rounded another corner and ascended the stairs that unfolded behind it. At the very top of these stairs stood a metal door that led to the roof of the building. Neko was hoping to catch her next prey on that very roof. However, just as she was about to reach the door, cacophonic shouting from behind it caused her to pause. Neko, being more of an observer than a confrontational person, pressed her ear against the door's cold surface. Three muffled voices echoed from beyond the closed door.

"I'll swear whenever I feel like it, you bi—

Hebi, Neko identified as she suppressed a cackle.

"Hebi, don't you dare finish that sentence."

Ookami, Neko realized, suppressing another cackle. She took a sip of her bottled milk. It was like she was listening to some radio soap opera.

"If you wanna be a damn mama bear so much, we should just change your name from Ookami to Kuma!"

"Hebi, don't cross the line with me. There's only so much that I can take, before I start confiscating your things."

"Hah! I'd like to see you try!"

"I would be lying if I said that I was enjoying your companies right now."

And Kitty Kitsune, Neko thought with amusement as she cackled quietly. She chugged the last of her milk down and tossed the glass bottle to the side.

"You need to watch your mouth too, Kitsune. I don't like that sass." Ookami chastised.

"You know what?" Hebi shot back — Neko could practically hear her scowling. "Kitsune can do whatever he wants — except brooding. I really don't like it when you get into one of your brooding moods, Kitsune."

"Stop shouting on my ear." Came Kitsune's monotone response.

"I wasn't shouting!" Hebi shouted back. "I was just speaking really loudly."

"Hebi..." — both Kitsune and Ookami said this word in unison, which caused the word to ring oddly in the air.

"W-What? Both of you are on my ass now?" Hebi stuttered, sounding flustered and upset. "Screw this. I'm out!"

Neko slyly stepped backwards as she heard banging, angry footsteps approach. She's slinked into the darkness as the door opened and watched as a figure entered the stairwell. She only revealed herself when the door slammed to a close.

"What's up, doll?"

Hebi started, visibly tensed, and squinted into the darkness.

"Neko?" She tried.

"That's right, doll."

Neko could see the outline of a grin grow on the girl's face, causing her own expression to twitch upwards.

"Thank god you're here!" Hebi sighed in exasperation as she felt her way through the darkness. "Ookami is being stuck-up again, and Kitsune is totally siding with her 'cause he's in one of his brooding moods… again!"

"Sounds harsh, doll." Neko reached out in the darkness to pat her on the shoulder. "But I have some catnip that'll cheer you right up!" She began to dig around her grocery bags once more.

"I hope you're not talking about literal catnip," Hebi frowned with crossed arms, "'cause that would be pretty shi—" she paused, swallowing the word and trying a different one: "crappy."

Neko didn't indicate that she had heard the statement and pulled a thin, plastic-covered object out from the bag. She reached for Hebi's hand and slid it into the snake girl's grasp. There was a gasp following this movement accompanied by an excited squeal.

"Chocolate?!" Hebi breathed deeply as she pressed the bar up to her nose and sniffed deeply. "It is!" She lunged forward and pulled Neko into a tight hug. "You're the second best, Neko!"

"Ey, I go through all that and I'm only the second best?" Neko mocked scowled as she patted the girl on the head.

"'Course." Hebi grinned toothily as she began to hop down the stairs. "Kitsune will always be number one!"

Neko smirked at the statement and watched as the girl reached the bottom of the stairwell, turned, and disappeared from her sight. She then turn towards the metal door, approached it, and pressed her ear against it once more. She listened intently—

"Kitsune," came Ookami's steady voice, "I didn't just come up here to scold Hebi. We need to talk."

"If it's not about the mission, the discussion doesn't concern me."

Neko rolled her eyes at the statement. Typical Kitsune.

"It is about the mission, and it's also about you. I'm rather… concerned."

"You don't need to be. I'm handling this part on my own."

"And that's the thing. Are you sure that you should be handling this particular mission on your own?"

"I don't see why not."

"Well, maybe second thoughts should be accounted for because you're entering a maximum security facility in a couple hours and word is that you're going to be accompanied by the eponymous Big Hero Six."

There was a pause of silence in which Kitsune did not respond. Neko frowned at this.

"You of all people should know that going in alone in those circumstances isn't logical." Ookami continued. "Now, tell me, then: what is so special about this facility — or maybe it's the six — that makes you keep insisting on handling the mission alone?"

"... It doesn't concern you." Kitsune finally responded. Said response was followed by a loud slapping sound.

"Stop being selfish." Ookami said after a moment of silence. "This mission concerns all of us, as does your wellbeing. Self-preservation is one of your main goals, isn't it? So act on it. It isn't like you to throw your lifeline around like this. Stop being foolish."

"... Do as you wish."

Neko chose at this moment to intervene in the conversation and swung the metal door open. Cold night air rushed up to meet her, as well as the silver light of the full moon that hung in the black sky. This light illuminated two figures on the roof. One of these figures was undeniably female and had a bundle of brunette hair tied into a messy bun resting on her head. Despite her slender figure, her expression was hard and her gaze was a steely brown hue. She was dressed in all black attire, while her counterpart was dressed in all white. Said counterpart stood rigidly beside her with a blank expression and with a hand cupping his reddened cheek. They both turned towards Neko as she approached, and they both gazed at her with glowering expressions.

"Yeesh," Neko laughed, "isn't this one hell of a welcome party!"

"Neko," Ookami raised an eyebrow as she placed a hand on her hip, "where have you been?"

"Buying early Christmas presents, of course!" She grinned her cheshire cat grin again.

"Do you always have to intrude." Kitsune glowered at her.

"Well yeah, Kit." Neko rolled her eyes, digging into her bag and pulling out the heaviest object. "It's my job." She handed the object to him and watched as he turned it over in his hands. Something in his expression flickered. Surprise? Recognition? Pain? Neko presumed that it was all of them in one.

"A book." Kitsune stated, his dark gaze shifting from the thick tome in his hands to her smiling expression. He turned the book over again, and read the title he found there aloud: "Biomechanical Engineering: A Summary."

"Yup." Neko nodded, crossing her arms. "I saw you oggling that thing when you were street brooding a couple days ago."

"You were following me." Kitsune noted which earned a half-hearted shrug from Neko. He paused, staring at the cover and running his thumb along its binding. "What am I supposed to do with this. Slam it over my target's head and hope that they fall unconscious?"

"Books are meant for reading, aren't they?" Ookami raised an eyebrow.

"I'll take it back if you don't want it." Neko sighed with a raised eyebrow. She placed a hand on her hip and extended the other for the book.

Much to both women's surprises, Kitsune took a step backwards and pulled the book towards his chest. Kitsune looked rather surprised at his own reaction and allowed his arms to drop loosely to his side. He attempted to pull on an indifferent mask onto his flushing face, but the mixture of blushing and indifference morphed into a scowl.

"I'll… read it." Kitsune muttered, sounding rather defeated.

"No need to be shy, Kit." Neko laughed loudly.

"I'm leaving." He replied stonily as he brushed past her and headed down the stairwell.

The two women watched as he faded from their view, before they turned towards each other. Neko grinned cheekily at her and held out her last item-filled grocery bag for Ookami to take. The latter raised an eyebrow and pried the bag away from the former's grasp. She didn't move to open it, however; rather, she allowed it to loosely hang in her fingertips as she stared at Neko steadily.

"What's wrong, Mama Wolf?" Neko tilted her head. "Not gonna look at the goody I got for you?"

"I will as soon as my stress levels lower to acceptable levels." Ookami sighed as she rubbed her temples. She crossed her arms and grimaced. "I need you and the others to follow Kitsune."

* * *

It was around midnight when Fred arrived at the Robotics Lab. The rendezvous time for the meetup was at six in the morning, but Fred was too anxious — no, too excited — to wait for that time to come around. So, here he was opening the doors leading to the lab and wearing a mask of mixed expressions.

Was he happy? Was he worried? Was he nervous? Was he confused? It was a loud yes to all of the questions.

He proposed several more questions to himself as he paced back and forth in the lobby room of the lab. As he answered his questions aloud, he made dramatic gestures in the air.

Why was Tadashi dressed up as some fox-masked anti-hero?

"Well, secret identity, duh!"

Why hadn't Tadashi revealed himself to them — to Hiro?

"Maybe he doesn't want us to know what he's up to for some reason? To like protect us or something?"

Why would Tadashi do something like that? Wouldn't it be the exact opposite of what Tadashi would do? Wouldn't Tadashi do everything in his ability to not make his friends and family suffer? Wouldn't he want to reunite with his family and friends?

"Come to think of it… Kitsune is like… the anti-Tadashi…"

Fred paused and frowned. He mulled over Kitsune's — Tadashi's — strange behavior. He mulled over the man's coldness, the man's air of aloofness and indifference. He mulled over the man's odd and spontaneous moments of airiness, his moments of forgetfulness. He then recalled the plot points in several of his comic books. In particular, he recalled the Winter Soldier arc in the Captain America comics. And then something clicked in his head, and his heart nearly skipped a beat.

"Wait… maybe," Fred frowned as his eyes widened, "Tadashi… doesn't… remember us…?"

"Fred?" came a soft voice filled with mild surprise. "Is that you, Fred?"

Fred started in surprised and turned his head towards where the voice had emanated from. Standing in the doorway leading to the actual laboratory of the Robotics Building stood none other than Honey Lemon herself. She was draped in her flowery labcoat, and her square glasses hid the bags forming under her eyes.

"What are you doing here, Fred?" Honey Lemon blinked in surprise. "Are you going to sleep here again?"

"Nah," Fred replied quickly as he collected his thoughts, "I was just, y'know, chillin' here till the mission starts." He tilted his head slightly. "What are you doing here?"

Honey's gaze shifted for a moment, and she averted her eyes to the ground. After a moment of silence, she glanced back at him and motioned her head backwards—

"Here, I'll show you."

Fred followed her into the lab room and to her lab station. Her chemistry set was sparkling with life. Vials filled with blue-liquid bubbled over burners and long tubes transferred droplets of one substance to other substances. It was all rather chaotic.

Fred paused, eyeing the blue liquid suspiciously, and frowned: "Hey, isn't that—

"It's the one Kitsune had it on him." Honey answered lightly and quickly. "And I kind of… smashed it to bits, but that's another story. Anyways, I collected a sample of it and now I'm trying to… neutralize its effects."

"Wait," Fred shook his head, "the Kitsune dude had it on him?"

Honey paused, considering, before she nodded slowly.

"I think Kitsune and his acquaintances all use it to boost their physical capabilities." Honey Lemon explained. "I saw him use it several times himself actually." She paused, her bright expression falling: "It has rather… adverse effects."

"But why?" Fred shook his head again. "Why would the dude use it? Wasn't he trying to destroy it?"

"I don't know…" Honey Lemon pursed her lips as she studied Fred's stricken expression with mild curiosity.

Fred never took Tadashi as a drug-user. Sure, Fred had some experiences with recreational drug usage, but he had never crossed the line. And Tadashi was the one who always reprimanded him for his drug-usage. Tadashi suddenly going back on his values didn't make any sense.

 _Tadashi isn't himself right now_ , Fred reminded himself, and he felt a sharp pain stab his heart as he reached this conclusion.

Before any further conversation could be made, however, the door to the lab swung open and a figure entered the premises.

"Kitsune," Honey started in surprise as she switched off the burner and stepped in front of her lab set-up, "you're here early!"

"I could say the same for you." came the steady reply.

Kitsune stepped into the light and crossed his arms. He was no longer wearing his black coat, his katana was once again strapped to his back, and a rectangular object was held loosely in his hand. His mask, of course, was still fastened tightly to his face.

Fred stared at him for a long and hard moment, his words becoming caught in his throat. The emotions that he had kept at bay for the past several hours finally broke past the dam he had put up; and Fred found himself rushing towards the man with outstretched arms. Before he could skid to a stop, he found himself embracing the man tightly.

Honey gasped in surprise; while Kitsune stood rigidly in place, arms raised above his head, and with his free hand uncertainly drifting towards his katana—

"What the hell."

Fred laughed loudly and released the man from his grasp and patted the man hard on the shoulder.

"Sorry," he continued to laugh easily, "I was so taken aback by your coolness and anti-heroness that I couldn't help myself."

"Right…" Kitsune replied slowly, lowering his hand.

Honey gazed at the duo suspiciously, her eyes lingering on Fred's relaxed expression. Her eyes then drifted towards Kitsune's expression and trailed along his body until they stopped at the object he held in his hand.

"What book is that?" she asked curiously as she stepped forward.

Kitsune seemed confused by her question and glanced around the room in search of the said book.

"In your hand there." She explained with a smile that hid her true, worried expression.

Kitsune lowered his head and gazed at the book in his hand. He seemed to start in surprise for a moment, before he clicked his tongue in annoyance. Under his breath, he muttered something about how 'Neko always got under his skin'.

"You can have it if you want." He replied, placing the book gently on the counter beside him. "I picked it up by accident."

Fred, being closest to the counter, studied the book cover. As he read the title of the book, his heart fluttered slightly. Biomechanical Engineering. A subject that Tadashi excelled at. A subject that Tadashi loved.

"Dude," Fred drew, as he picked the book off of the counter and handed it back to the man, "can't you see that this book is calling out to you? It's like calling for you to open it up and read it, man. It's your destiny!"

"You're making me uncomfortable." Kitsune replied bluntly. Despite this fact, he took the book and tucked it under his arm. Fred grinned brightly at the action, earning himself a glowering glare.

"So…" Fred drew out as he tapped his foot. "What's up, Kitsune?"

Kitsune and Honey Lemon both gave him strange looks. Kitsune turned his head and was evidently pretending that he hadn't heard the question. He walked around the lab, located a stray chair in the corner of the room, and slowly eased himself into it with crossed arms.

"You could rest here if you're feeling tired." Honey Lemon murmured as she approached him.

"I wouldn't come here if I was tired." He shot back in monotone.

Honey Lemon assumed that he was still sour about her crushing his physical enhancements and brushed his snide remark to the side. She pursed her lips, wondering if he had taken another injection once had arrived home — wherever his home was.

"I assume that we need to wait for your fellow teammates before we leave for Callaghan." Kitsune murmured.

"It'd be better if we were all together." Honey Lemon replied, smiling again.

"Professor Callaghan!" Fred shouted loudly and suddenly, earning him the attention of those within the room; he strode over to Kitsune and plopped down on the floor beside him. "What do you think of the guy?"

"I'm going to leave if you keep bothering me." Kitsune answered stolidly.

"Come on." Fred eased him with a toothy grin. "What's your first impression of him?"

"To have a first impression of him, I would have had to have met him before." Kitsune finally answered after a long and awkward pause of silence.

"So you've never met Callaghan before?" Fred pressed on.

"Isn't that what I just implied." Kitsune frowned beneath his mask.

"Are you sure?" Fred came to a stand and peered into Kitsune's face — rather, Tadashi's mask. "Are you sure never met the Professor before — like, are you one-hundred percent sure?"

"I know of him." Kitsune stated simply, irritation becoming evident in his tone of voice. "I've never met him."

"Dude, are you sure that you just haven't like… I dunno… _forgotten_ about him?" Fred tried.

Kitsune visibly started at the question, before his body became rigid again.

"Maybe I have." Kitsune snapped back. "He must have not been important if I've forgotten about him so easily."

There was venom in his voice; and much to his surprise and relief, his comment seemed to have silenced Fred. However, the relief then turned into something strange — a feeling that he had not felt in a long time. Guilt.

"Then again," Kitsune sighed, averting his gaze, "I've always had a memory problem."

This earned a barking laugh from Fred and a worried smile from Honey spent the rest of the dawn in mostly silence, spawning a small conversation here and there every once in a while, and waited for the clock to strike six and for the others to arrive. When all members of the group were accounted for, they took off to the skies on Baymax's back (despite Kitsune's protests) and headed towards the facility in which Callaghan was being held.

* * *

Kitsune stared up at the white building with a feeling of slight disappointment. The physical state-of-the-art facility was rather unimpressive compared to the one he had imagined. Sure the building appeared slightly intimidating with it's windowless exterior and metal compound, but other than that, it looked like a regular building.

"Even though sticking with us will earn you a VIP ticket inside," Hiro said steadily from beside him, "you're still going to have to put your pointy things away." He eyed the katana strapped to the man's back.

"Do you have a garbage disposal on you." He asked in monotone and with a hint of sarcasm, as he unstrapped his katana and held it loosely in his hands.

"No," Hiro smirked back at him as he nodded to a corner in the alleyway behind them, "but there's one over there."

Much to Hiro's surprise, the man raised the sheathed blade above his head and chucked it at the disposal can in the alleyway. The blade whirled through the air with a high-pitched whine, before it slammed into the wall behind the disposal bin and clattered to the ground beside it with a resonating clack.

"You've got one mean throw." Wasabi commented from the sidelines.

Honey Lemon and Fred, on the other hand, stared at the fox-masked man with uncertainty. Gogo scoffed at him and rolled her eyes.

"Well, now that that's out of the way..." Hiro raised an eyebrow, turning back towards the facility building. "Let's go."

"I assume that security protocols prevent you from bringing your robot along." Kitsune tried as he began following Hiro with the other four towards the building.

"Yeah," Hiro shrugged, "even though he's the one who helped put most of the baddies in here, they still think that he could somehow be used as a tool in helping some of the inmates escape."

They pushed on the steel doors and entered the building. The interior was — Kitsune admitted — actually impressive. It was brightly lit, neat, and official-looking. Men and women in tight uniforms dotted the room — all turned their heads towards the group as they entered the building. Kitsune tensed slightly at their actions and counted how many uniformed officers were in the room. Hiro and the others, on the other hand, didn't pay any mind to the attention they had been given and approached the receptionist desk at the center of the room. The woman sitting their glanced up at them and offered them a warm smile.

"Welcome back," she nodded at them, "Big Hero Six." She paused, her gaze drifting towards Kitsune's figure.

"Fox-face is with us." Gogo explained.

"Is that so?" the woman pursed her lips.

"Yeah, he's chill." Fred nodded as he leaned himself onto the receptionist desk counter. "We're here to talk to Callaghan btws."

"We were hoping to talk to him in the interrogation room." Honey Lemon added helpfully from the sidelines.

"Alright." The receptionist nodded, her eyes lingering on Kitsune's mask. She glanced down at her computer and typed a phrase out on the keyboard, finishing it all off with the click of her mouse. "Mr. Fawkes," she gestured to the man who stood by the hallway behind the receptionist desk, "will escort you."

Kitsune observed Mr. Fawkes as he approached them. He was tall and broad; he was adorned with a crisp uniform; and most important of all, a glock and a baton were equipped on his belt.

"Follow me." the man said curtly before he turned and began to walk towards the hallway that lay behind the receptionist desk.

The group of six obliged his command and entered the hall behind him. The hall was rather wide, and steel doors popped up every once and while along the walls. At the very end of the hall was a T-shaped cross-section. They turned right at this cross-section and found themselves walking along another hallway. When they reached the end of this hall, they found a large, ornate, double-doorway awaiting them. There was a keypad attached to the surface of one of the doors.

The uniformed officer punched several digits into the keypad and waited for a soft click to resound in the air, before he moved to push the doors open. An ordinary-looking interrogation room unfolded itself for them. A steel table, white walls, white floors, steel chairs.

A middle-aged man dressed in all white sat at the steel table on one of the many steel chairs. The man started in surprise as he saw the group enter. As all gazes met with another, the atmosphere found itself becoming colder.

"Hiro…" the man identified with slightly widened eyes. His gaze shifted towards those who stood behind him. "My students…"

"We're not your students anymore." Gogo snapped quickly, crossing her arms.

"Right," the man shook his head, before he laughed softly. "Y'know, when they said that I had visitors… I wasn't expecting…"

"We're not here for a friendly visit." Hiro said thickly; he glanced backwards and nodded at Kitsune. "This guy here has some questions for you — questions about CASCO."

Callaghan paled, and his body tensed.

"How do you…" he gaped, his gaze drifting towards the man Hiro indicated.

As soon as their eyes met, a sharp pain shot through Kitsune's head. His mind became muddled, his surroundings hazy. A ringing cacophony echoed resolutely in his ears, like the chiming bells of a church. Before he knew what was happening, he was doubled over and cradling his head. Fred and Honey Lemon were supporting him at his sides. The other three were peering into his face with worried expressions.

"Dude," Fred murmurd from beside him, "you alright? Your head hurt? You remembering somethin'?" The question earned the young man strange looks.

Kitsune soon regained some of his senses and shrugged the others off of him. He then made his way towards the steel table with the security official, Hiro, and Fred trailing behind him. Once he reached the table, he leaned forward and pressed his palms against the table's cool edges; and he stared into Callaghan's eyes. The old man had pulled up a mask of indifference to hide his true expressions of worry, curiosity, and confusion.

"CASCO." Kitsune stated slowly. "You worked on the research team — the C Division — for Project Doubutsu."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Callaghan answered him in an even voice, turning his head.

"You know who the head of the project is." Kitsune continued. "The real head, not the acting head."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Callaghan repeated.

"Why you…" Gogo gritted her teeth, using all of her strength to restrain herself from walking over to the table and slugging the man in the face.

"Callaghan," Hiro said steadily with narrowed eyes, "you need to answer truthfully — to make up for everything that you've done."

A look of guilt flashed across Callaghan's face in that instant, and he lowered his eyes and furrowed his eyebrows. He studied his hands for a quiet moment, before he sighed: "I can't tell you, Hiro. I'm sorry."

"I should have known." Kitsune muttered under his breath as he straightened himself.

"Kitsune?"

"The only way to get people to answer your questions is through fear."

With that final statement hanging in the air, Kitsune reached across the table, grabbed Callaghan by the collar, and tossed him across the room. He hit the wall with the thud and slid to the floor with a groan.

The security official snapped into action immediately, lunging for the fox-masked man. In one fluid moment, however, Kitsune knocked the official off of his feet, ripped the glock from the man's belt, and clicked the safety of the gun off. He pointed the glock at the official's head as he gazed at Callaghan's groaning form.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Gogo and Hiro shouted in unison.

"Don't move or I'll kill him." Kitsune said stonily.

The atmosphere of the room plummeted to all new frigid levels as the cold reality of betrayal hit the five heroes in their faces. Everyone within the room stood tense with expressions of disbelief, betrayal, and hurt.

"I know that we couldn't trust you!" Gogo seated, her hand paused halfway in the air — she had attempted to reach for her equipped disk, before Kitsune had pointed the gun at the security officer.

"Where are the other guards…?" Wasabi thought to himself under his breath. "Shouldn't this have thrown up a security alert or something?"

"Of course." Kitsune blinked at her steadily. "I'm still unsure of why you didn't follow your instincts."

The fox-masked man began to walk towards Callaghan who was just beginning to pick himself off of the floor. Just as he was about to reach the fallen man's side, Hiro lunged at him — rather, Hiro lunged for the gun. Unfortunately, Kitsune easily knocked the adolescent to the ground; and before Hiro could do anything else, he found the nose of the glock pointed square at his head. Cold eyes stared down at him from behind the mask, cold eyes that — for some odd reason — made Hiro's heart ache. These cold eyes did not waver as their owner moved his finger towards the trigger of the gun—

"Tadashi, don't! He's your brother!"

Kitsune paused, eyes widening in slight confusion. Gogo used this pause of confusion to her advantage (She had to break through her own confusion first and had assumed that Fred had shouted something random to distract Kitsune.) and ripped the yellow disk off of her back and whipped it at the fox-masked man's face. The sheer force of her throw caused a resonating whine to echo in the air, and the disk hit it's target perfectly.

The disk slammed against the mask and ricocheted to the side. Cracks appeared along the mask; and one by one, pieces of white plaster and porcelain rained down onto the ground. These pure-white fragments were soaked with droplets of maroon red.

Kitsune winced and stumbled backwards, making a grab for what little remained of his mask. He grunted and ripped the shattered remains off and threw it to the ground. He wiped the blood that had dribbled from the gash on his forehead into his eyes off and glowered coldly at them.

Despite the burn marks that stretched half of his face and despite the red smears that covered his expression, all of the heroes recognized the face that had just been revealed from beneath the mask. It was the face of a ghost. The face of a paradox. It was an impossible improbability.

None of them spoke out of fear of both voiding the paradox and making the paradox true.

...

Hiro's eyes traced along the man's face, taking in every single detail that he could. Every detal was almost perfectly the same. This face was the same face that smiled at him, that scolded him, and that had encouraged him since he was born.

The more Hiro's eyes lingered on the man's face, the more his eyes stung and the more his eyes watered.

A memory flashed in his mind:

_Riding on the back of his motorcycle, the air whipping madly at his face. Their reflections smiling and scowling back at them from the darkened glass of the building. The feeling of immortality and invincibility — as long as they were together, they'd be fine!_

' _You knucklehead!' — angrily, frustratedly, but warmly and affectionately._

"Ta…" Hiro swallowed, slowly coming to a stand. "Tadashi…?"

…

Gogo's hand fell limply to her side as she stared at the man. It was impossible, but there he was in the flesh. Her entire body felt numb, like she had been plunged headfirst into ice-cold water; but despite this numbness — this coldness — her eyes were watering uncontrollably and burned with the salty tears.

' _You like to go fast, huh? I have to say — you're pretty amazing. At this rate, no one will be able to catch up with you!'_

…

Honey Lemon's hand drifted towards her quivering mouth.

It couldn't be.

This man couldn't be Tadashi.

This man with such cold eyes couldn't be the Tadashi who always smiled so warmly.

But the cold reality was right in front of her glaring at her with cold eyes.

Someone had stolen away Tadashi's warmth, she realized. And she would do everything in her ability to return it back to him.

' _You've got to admit that Honey Lemon does kind of make sense. You're sweet as honey, but you're as cool and soul as lemons.'_

…

Wasabi's mind was muddled and confused. And he hated it when things were muddled and confusing. He wished that he could understand the confusing mess that stood before him — the confusing mess that was causing strange sounds to escape his throat, the confusing mess that was his best friend Tadashi.

' _There's nothing wrong with being sensitive, you know? If anything, it makes you an even stronger person! Oh man… That sounded corny, didn't it?"_

…

Hiro took a shaky step forward.

"Tadashi?" He repeated.

A blank stare was his only response. A cold and blank stare. It was a stare that Hiro hated intensely. It was a stare that did not belong on Tadashi's face. It was a stare that Hiro decided that he would break. So, he ran at his brother and pulled him into a tight embrace. It was a sloppy and wet embrace, but it was a tight and almost inescapable one as well.

"Tadashi." Hiro sobbed uncontrollably. "It's really you, right? Not another dream? Ta—"

His sob was cut off short as Tadashi kicked him away. The force of the kick sent him flying across the room. If Fred hadn't been standing a few feet behind him, he would have found himself slamming into the wall full-force. Instead, the two found themselves in a toppled heap.

Kitsune made his way over towards Callaghan who was staring at him with widened eyes of disbelief and pulled the man up to a stand. He then pointed the nose of the gun at the man's temple and stared steadily at the teary group before him.

"You're going to let us pass through." He stated as if it was a fact.

"Tadashi… What…" Honey Lemon shook her head and stepped forward. "What are you doing?"

"You're not going to shoot." Fred stated firmly. "You're not going to kill him. I know you're not going to."

Kitsune blinked at the two, before he lowered the glock — and fired it. The bullet pierced the flesh on Callaghan's upper leg, and the man let out a bloodcurdling scream.

"I won't kill him." Kitsune agreed. "But I will maim him if I have to. Now let us pass through."

"Tadashi…" Hiro laughed in confusion, his voice becoming slightly hysterical. "What are you talking about? Let's go home — Aunt Cass is going to be really mad, but that's okay… I…"

"Move." Kitsune stated calmly, taking several step forwards and dragging Callaghan with him.

"No." Gogo spoke suddenly in a quiet whisper. "You can't, Tadashi. You need to come home, Tadashi." She moved towards the door with widespread arms. She bit her lip and shouted loudly: "You need to come to your damn senses and come home!"

It was then that the entire building shook like an earthquake had been released at its core; and the wall behind the steel table cracked, splintered, and crumbled to pieces. As the dust cleared away, two figures entered the room. One of these figures the group of five recognized; the other, they did not. A hawk-like mask obscured his face.

"Rescue squad is here to the rescue!" Hebi shouted loudly, ripping off her snake-mask and slamming it to the ground. Her eyes scanned the room, before they landed on Kitsune's face; and then they widened. "Kitsune, what happened to your beautiful face?!" Her gaze then shifted towards where Hiro and the others stood frozen; and her face paled; and her eyes narrowed: "No...You…"

"Why are you here." Kitsune muttered, pulling the frantic Callaghan closer to him.

"Ookami sent us to rescue your damsel-in-distress ass. Took us a while 'cause you suddenly decided to turn into Superman and fly away." The hawk-masked man answered matter-of-factly. "The explosion was my idea, by the way — I thought that it'd make a pretty fresh entrance scene. I kind of had an Expendables thing in mind, but that kind of explosiveness would have destroyed the entire city block—"

"I have Callaghan." Kitsune cut him off and tossed the professor towards the rambling man. Said man caught Callaghan bridal-style.

"Damn." The hawk-masked man muttered. "I feel like I'm Prince Charming."

"I'm not going to forgive you for harming Kitsune!" Hebi shrieked at the top of her lungs as she began charging towards them. She was, however, stopped by Kitsune's extended hand. She glanced up at him with a mixture of fear and confusion: "Kitsune…?"

"Mission accomplished." He replied, not even sparing her a glance. "We're leaving."

"Sweet. This party was getting awkward anyways." The hawk-masked man chirped from the sidelines as he turned towards the gaping hole in the wall that led to the outside world. "Stop squirming, pops." he sighed down at Callaghan who was struggling to free himself from the man's grasp. "It isn't very princess-like of you."

"Where the hell do you think you're going with Callaghan and Tadashi?!" Gogo shouted furiously, taking a step forward.

Hebi winced as she heard the latter name, while the hawk-masked man pretended that he hadn't heard her. Before Gogo or any of the others could make a move towards them, however, Hebi reached into her pocket and pulled out a small circular object. She threw the object on the ground and disappeared from their view along with the hawk-masked man and Callaghan as a cloud of smoke erupted in the air. The last thing they saw was Tadashi's wavering gaze. He stared at them for a moment, before he turned his head and disappeared into the gray haze.

Hiro's eyes widened at the sight, and he charged blindly through the smoke clouds. He shouted Tadashi's name over and over, choking on the acrid grayness as he did so. He tripped over pieces of rubble in his mad scramble, but he continuously picked himself up over and over again. He screamed the name over and over again, until his voice went hoarse. He ignored the calls of his own name and delved deeper into the grayness. He continued to shout; and his throat grew raw, but he didn't care. He didn't care at all.

The smoke cleared away, and he found himself staring at an empty street. His knees gave way beneath him; and he slid to the ground. He vaguely felt himself being surrounded and prodded and shaken by worried hands, and he vaguely heard the wailing cries of police sirens. But he didn't care much about those things either. All he really cared about at the moment was—

"Tadashi… Why?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the usual plug and chug:  
> Take a gander at:  
> [ Six Chances ](https://sixchances.com/part-1-the-synchronized-six/) the original web fiction on my website or...  
> [ Six Chances ](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/28808/the-synchronized-six-six-chances) on Royal Road.  
> twitter: [ @sixchancesstory ](https://twitter.com/sixchancesstory)  
> If you don't like it, you can always unfollow/exit the website! It'd just mean a lot if you checked it out.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm a fickle person. After some thought, I've decided to bring this story back but strictly keep it on AO3. At this point, I might as well be a Gemini. So here, my friends, is the culmination of my high school angst. I'll post in a cluster of five chapters or so a day and then leave it to the abyss.
> 
> There is also a TV Tropes page [ here ](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/FoxFaceAndFlames) for the story if you'd like to take a gander.


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